Like only a handful of other filmmakers — among them Jim Jarmusch, who is wittily referenced here — Finnish legend Aki Kaurismäki (The Other Side of Hope) has a sensibility so singular, film culture has had to adjectivise his name in order to describe it.

Full of deadpan scenarios in which taciturn characters act out beautifully observed little pen-portraits of melancholic — and often alcoholic — absurdism, Fallen Leaves is certainly entirely Kaurismäkian. But there is also just a tincture of something new in the mix in his Cannes Jury Prize-winner: the story of two lonely blue-collar workers tending a fragile connection, pivots into an unexpectedly wise and hopeful little romance, in which the consolations of meeting a potential mate in middle-age outweigh the obvious drawbacks. These leaves might be falling, but there’s a sniff of spring in the air.

This feature will be preceded by short film, Waltz, by filmmaker Tara Brady.

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