As charming as it is preposterous, a French fable called Le Havre arrives this week by way of Finland, the home of writer-director Aki Kaurismäki, whose idiosyncratic style is evident throughout this tale of that current events topic — illegal immigration.
Le Havre, the industrial port city in Normandy plays a vital role in this story of a likeable freelance shoeshine guy, Marcel (Kaurismäki veteran André Wilms), who befriends a young African boy, Idrissa (Blondin Miguel). Discovered on the docks with his family in a shipping container bound for London, Idrissa runs away from the authorities and encounters Marcel, who hides the boy in his humble home.
It is not like Marcel doesn’t have his own troubles, for his long-suffering wife, Arletty (the wondrously deadpan Kati Outinen, also a favorite of Kaurismäki’s) has just contracted a mysterious, life-threatening pain and had to be rushed to the hospital. While she is there, Marcel’s concerned neighbors conspire to care for Idrissa, keep the police off his tail and, eventually, do what they can to help the boy escape to freedom in England.
All of this whimsy could be badly overplayed, but Kaurismäki is a staunch minimalist and his actors uniformly underplay to a fault, at times to the extent of barely changing expressions within a scene.
Still, Le Havre is full of flavorful characters, including the local shopkeepers and particularly the police inspector, Monet (Jean-Pierre Darroussin), who always seems one step away from nabbing the boy, but ultimately proves to be far more benign than his dark garb suggests.
And for no other reason than Kaurismäki’s interest in showcasing him, the movie pauses for a concert by a diminutive rock singer named Little Bob (Roberto Piazza) that is entirely in keeping with the rest of the film’s non sequiturs. Chances are you would not want it any other way.
LE HAVRE. Director: Aki Kaurismäki. Starring: André Wilms, Blondin Miguel, Kait Outinen, Jean-Pierre Darroussin. Distributor: Janus Films. In French with English subtitles. Showing: Opening this weekend at the Mos’Art Theatre in Lake Park.