Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Develiker terrible... so disappointed.

Micransix Crappy film

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Fahd Shakir This was an extremely fun film for me just for how completely the director shocked my allegiances. Iris is fantastic. Kaurismäki makes you feel deeply sympathetic towards her and does it with virtually no words for most of the beginning of the film. The pacing is still solid, there isn't any unnecessary lingering, just solid scene setting. I don't remember any specific shots making an impact aside from maybe a long shot of the avenue her brother presumably takes her to. I'm wondering now if Kaurismäki subscribed to the dogma 95 method of cinematography from how sparse every shot was. In any case, it worked and I couldn't help but root for Iris as she desperately and unsuccessfully tried to find companionship. A few lines of dialogue, an undeserved slap, and a peeled orange all endeared her even more until she finally snapped. Even then, some of her alarming behavior, if not condone-able or justifiable, was at least somewhat understandable. It isn't until the drunk barfly scene that it becomes obvious something is seriously wrong. And even then I assumed some contrived machina would yet resolve everything for Iris. The ending is so cold and logical, it's brilliant. The initial feeling after shock is a bit of guilt for having rooted for her, as if you were complicit for having been in her corner, but then after some consideration, there's more of relief as if your ardent stance was shown to be thoroughly incorrect, but fortunately there were no consequences. If you think about it, the film is asking you to question how you determine a person's character without having known everything about them. Lots to ponder through such a simple story.

igotdaballs2doit Good for me that I watched this film at home, so that I didn't bore myself to death with it, but could play solitaire (yes, it drove me to that). I didn't like the film because: -Finnish people are not as extremely quiet as depicted in this film, so don't get the wrong idea about this nice European nation. Was it trying to be artistic??? It was just plain boring. -Iris has a behaviour that I couldn't imagine any human being could have... She's a loser who accepts her faith, but suddenly she's had enough and kills others, instead of killing herself, which would have been the more credible ending. -During the whole one hour of the film I had permanently the feeling that nothing fits... nada, nix... like watching separate scenes from different movies put together. E nough said. My advice is: DO NOT waste an hour of your life with this film. IMDb rating does not reflect reality.

finn_ This is my favorite Kaurismaki film--tragedy with black humor.Dialog, as usual, is plain and there is very little of it.The film is beautifully shot. Camera stays static, giving space for colors and lighting.Kati Outinen's performance is amazing. Her eyes are somehow able to express the deepest sadness and longing. Her suffering feels real, one feels this urge to step into the film to just say a kind word to her, to try to make her feel better.Kaurismaki plays here with his audience's mind. He said in an interview that the amount of rat poison Iris gives to the ones who have done wrong to her is actually not enough to kill anybody--meaning that is us who send Iris to prison for committing this horrible series of murders.One shouldn't let the film's simple face fool oneself--it is much more than a story of wrongdoing and revenge.Soundtrack fits perfectly to the atmosphere and it has an important role in telling the story, as well as explaining Iris's emotions and motives throughout the film.

dbdumonteil Iris is a young Finnish girl whose life has no horizon. She works in a match factory and still lives at her parents'. She escapes by reading soppy love stories or by attending a dance. One night, she thinks she has found Prince Charming. But the latter reveals himself a scornful human being who has no consideration for her. Then, she is chased away by her parents and relies on her brother's generosity to put her up. But Iris didn't say her last word and she decides to prepare a plan to have a revenge on the ones who couldn't love her.In the nineteenth Century, Andersen, a Danish writer wrote a tale entitled "the little match girl". Here, the film-maker Aki Kaurismäki kept certain elements of this tale to create in his own way, a sort of updated version. And it's a much more austere one so much that it virtually evokes Robert Bresson's cinema. This is how I perceive "the Match Factory Girl" (1990): a cross between a modernized version of Andersen's tale and Bresson's cinema for the straight-forward style and the intense austerity in which the story bathes.Aki Kaurismäki seems to have understood that to give his movie a big dramatic intensity, ostentation and exaggeration were to be excluded. The amount? A grievous movie which hurts where everything in the cinema writing is reduced to simplicity, nearly stillness and despair. This, to better express the dreary world in which Iris is prisoner and the wrong hopes she comes up against. Barely camera movements (the movie nearly looks like a succession of paintings), sinister scenery, blue-green lighting, dumb or merciless characters blend themselves to create a universe impenetrable to happiness. To plunge more in this desolate world, Kaurismäki nearly shot a silent movie, only scattered by laconic and reduced in the extreme dialogs. But to tell the truth, dialogs are not the most important thing. Looks matter more and reveal best the characters' thoughts and feelings.The director's sympathy towards Iris and making her put up at her brother's are the only pities he shows and his movie would be of a total blackness if there wasn't humor. A humor which acts in an ironic way: "I came to tell you goodbye...".Overrall, this grave movie about the lack of love strikes right at the heart and its vision is rather difficult. If you are down in the dumps, save it for a better day. It's a short movie (hardly an hour) but Iris' pale and retiring countenance stays rooted for a long time in the spectator's brain. And Kati Outinen, impressive of fragility and sensitiveness is perfect in this role.