” take a number , fill out a form , and wait your turn . ”
starring kati outinen , kari v ? ? n ? nen , sakari kuosmanen , elina salo ; written & directed by aki kaurism ? ki ; cinematography by timo salminen
it might be possible to call drifting clouds a satire or a black comedy , but that would imply a sense of anger , of vitriol , of energy ; drifting clouds is what you get when the rage and vitality are gone .
it is the sad , slow story of lauri and ilona , a married couple caught between the wheels of capitalism as it grinds inexorably onward .
he loses his job as a tram driver , because everyone drives cars nowadays .
within a couple of months , she loses her position as a head waiter , when her restaurant is bought out by a chain and the entire staff replaced .
a conversation early in the film reveals a lot about their situation .
lauri has surprised ilona by buying her a tv , which she greets with little enthusiasm .
she notes that they haven’t finished paying for the bookshelves or the couch yet .
he says that in four years the payments will be done and then they can buy some books for the shelves .
it would pass as deadpan humour if it wasn’t spoken with such resigned weariness .
this sets the tone for the rest of the movie .
there is humour and idiosyncracy at the periphery , but at the centre there is frustration and futility , and sorrow for the ways in which the logic of profit reduces people , until their worth is equated solely with their earning capacity .
there is an element of political commentary in this critique of the mechanisms of capitalism and the stultifying social environment it creates , but in drifting clouds the political is subsumed by the personal : the movie is about two people and what happens to them , and nothing else matters .
lauri and ilona live lives starved for friendship , respect , culture , passion .
they go to the movies , and walk out past old posters for l’atalante and l’argent , but the movie they have just seen is a pointless , violent , unfunny comedy .
their house and workplaces are uniformly unpleasant , painted and upholstered in lifeless colours ( ugly greens , dull reds , insipid blues ) , full of inelegantly functional objects and appliances .
the art design is impeccable in its tawdriness , and director aki kaurism ? ki often matches the colour of characters’ clothes with the background colour and/or lighting , so that it seems as if they are almost physically fading into the environment .
there is no suggestion of sexuality in the relationship ; ilona and lauri sleep in separate beds and their gestures of affection lack the heat of desire ; their lives are now bound by something more complex and desperate than love .
their downward , downsized , downtrodden lives have a momentum that is almost comic , as one setback succeeds another , bottoming out when lauri stakes all their remaining money on the spin of a roulette wheel .
it must have been tempting to play the story for more laughs , more farce , more deadpan wit , but the film’s great strength is the sober , empathic manner in which it observes lauri and ilona’s misfortunes .
irony would be an injustice .
situations and settings are broad and exaggerated–this is not realism–but they are not distorted .
the emotions are authentic .
if it is difficult to laugh at anything that happens , despite the droll performances , the laconic humour , that’s because kaurism ? ki brings such compassion and understanding to the manifold indignities that are suffered .
he shows us how humiliating it must be for a woman of thirty-eight , who has worked long and hard to win a respectable position , to be forced to accept a job as a dishwasher in a two-bit restaurant ; how humiliating it must be for a man nearing 50 to confront his wife’s former employer , demanding the rest of her wages , only to have the crap beaten out of him , unable to land a single punch , when the employer and his cronies refuse to give him the money .
all this is observed keenly , with great economy : every cut , every line of dialogue , is judicious .
if most films are novelistic in their telling , this one brings the focus and concentration of a short story to bear .
but what is gained in nuance and acumen is rather undermined by the sense that the material barely accommodates the 96-minute running length .
i have seen many movies far less profound , less humane , less necessary than drifting clouds , but they filled me with an urge to watch them again , and this one did not .
it does not need to be seen twice : its every detail and implication can be absorbed in one viewing .
it is not a movie that will be seen by a large audience , because it cannot be pitched to one .
there is no selling point .
it is all understatement , restraint , melancholy .
the characters are unremarkable , their best years behind them , their dreams dissipated ; it takes all the effort they can muster just to pay the bills .
this does not make them less fascinating , merely less marketable , which is a shame , because this is a movie which should be seen , precisely because it pays attention to people and emotions that most movies prefer to ignore .
it engages us and touches us and resolves–surprisingly , and movingly–into something resembling a happy ending .
the only thing greater than the ill-luck that governs the characters’ lives is their refusal to give in to despair .
their persistence is rewarded with what might be called a ” feel-good ” ending elsewhere , but not here , because this ending differs in kind from most such endings : this one has truly been earned .