Time magazine has named Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves as the best movie of the year. The US newsmagazine described the director's 20th feature film as "magic".
The Finnish-German production premiered last May at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize. It was released in Finland in September, quickly becoming the most-watched film of the year in cinemas.
"Kaurismäki is the master of the deadpan humanist comedy, the type of picture that people may think of as merely odd or charming," wrote Time critic Stephanie Zacharek.
Fallen Leaves is Finland's official entry for the Best International Feature Film category at next year’s Academy Awards, to be held in March in Hollywood.
A shortlist with 15 finalists for the honour is to be announced on 21 December. Kaurismäki’s The Man Without a Past (2002) is the only Finnish movie ever to be shortlisted for the award. Kaurismäki boycotted the Oscars ceremony in protest against the US-led invasion of Iraq.
A jury named by the Finnish Film Foundation designated two of his other films as Finland’s official entries: Drifting Clouds (1996) and Lights in the Dusk (2006). However, Kaurismäki withdrew them from competition after they were submitted to the Academy.
Kaurismäki refers to Fallen Leaves as the fourth part of his working-class trilogy that began with Shadows in Paradise in 1986. It continued with Ariel two years later and The Match Factory Girl in 1990.
In August, Fallen Leaves won the 2023 Grand Prix from the International Federation of Film Critics (Fipresci), his third time winning the same award.
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