Le Havre

Le Havre, 2011
35mm, Color, 93’

Marcel Marx, a former author and well-known bohemian has retreated into a voluntary exile in the port city Le Havre where he serves the people as a shoe-shiner. He has buried his dreams of a literary breakthrough and lives happily within the triangle of his favorite bar, his work, and his wife Arletty, when fate suddenly throws in his path an underage immigrant refugee from Africa. As his wife Arletty gets ill and is bedridden Marcel attempts to use the weapon of optimism against human indifference but the "Western State" with all its machinery is after the refugee boy. What Marcel has to do is polish his shoes and reveal his teeth. A first installment in what Kaurismäki envisages as a trilogy about life in port cities, Le Havre won the FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes and has been selected as the Finnish entry for the 2012 Academy Awards.