The Match Factory Girl

1990 Finnish drama

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Iris lives a lonely life. She works at a match-making factory all day before going home where she lives with her parents and sleeps on the couch. She attempts to venture out and meet guys, but it doesn't work out. One night, she meets a bearded fellow and wonders if she has a future with him. She does, but it's not the future either of them had in mind.

This really reminded me of Jarmusch, and I thought this short flick managed to set a tone and tell a story very well with very little dialogue (almost none for the first 30 minutes of the movie) and some rather mundane imagery. There's very little movement, too, and the somber, almost clinical way Iris's story is told forces you to focus on every single detail as the story progresses. Blink and you're completely miss the humor in this one, but it's there and it's dark. Like Aki Kaurismaki (writer/director who I didn't think I knew but who apparently did the Leningrad Cowboys movie I saw last year), the actress playing the main character does an excellent job while seemingly doing nothing at all. Her face, expressionless and shockingly unchanging, subtly tells tales that really couldn't be told any other way. I'm wondering if there's any connection between this movie and the old "Match Stick Girl" Christmasy story. Two other movies are included in the Criterion set, and I look forward to checking them out.