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| Likaiset kädet / Dirty Hands. Sulevi Peltola (Hoederer), Matti Pellonpää (Hugo). |
Die schmutzigen Hände / De smutsiga händerna / Le mani sporche.
FI 1989. PC: Yleisradio / TV 1 / Teatteritoimitus. – Sputnik Oy. P: Hannu Kahakorpi.
D+SC: Aki Kaurismäki – based on the play (1948) by Jean-Paul Sartre. Cin: Matti Kurkikangas – 16 mm – colour – 1,33:1. PD: Risto Karhula. Set dec: Risto Jokinen. Cost: Outi Harjupatana, Mari Ropponen. Makeup: Zoe Burtsow. M from: Dmitri Shostakovich. S: Lasse Litovaara (rec), Ari Lyytikäinen (monitoring), Jussi Olkinuora (mixer). ED: Paavo Eskalinen.
C: Matti Pellonpää (Hugo), Kati Outinen (Jessica), Sulevi Peltola (Hoederer), Kaija Pakarinen (Olga), Pertti Sveholm (Louis), Kari Väänänen (Ivan), Pirkka-Pekka Petelius (Slick), Aake Kalliala (Georges), Esko Nikkari (Karsky), Hannu Lauri (the Prince), Hannu Viholainen (Charles), Asmo Hurula (Frantz).
68 min
TV movie.
Telecast: 5 Oct 1989 Yle TV1 Kunnon Kino.
2015 digital transfer supervised by Aki Kaurismäki.
Finnish festival premiere: 2015 Midnight Sun Film Festival, Sodankylä (Peter von Bagh in memoriam).
International festival premiere: 2015 Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna (Peter von Bagh in memoriam).
2K DCP with English subtitles viewed at Filmmuseum München, Munich, 30 Jan 2020.
AA: Les Mains sales is an interesting exception in Aki Kaurismäki's oeuvre: his only tv movie, shot in seven days, from nine to five, his only period movie, with Total Balalaika Show his only film in 16 mm, and the only one without his trusted DP Timo Salminen. The focus in this film and Total Balalaika Show is not on visual expression.
As for the cast, Aki Kaurismäki's "dream team" is here at its most complete, starting with Kati Outinen and Matti Pellonpää, including the solid presences of Esko Nikkari and Sulevi Peltola, as well as beloved sketch comedians Aake Kalliala and Pirkka-Pekka Petelius. There is little room for self-expression. Actors recite dialogue monotonously. Did somebody mention Straub & Huillet?
Yet the essence of the tragedy comes through. Thinking about Les Mains sales I was struck by an affinity with Martin Scorsese's The Irishman in the drama of the respected leader and his assistant. We can imagine Robert De Niro playing Hugo and Al Pacino as Hoederer.
The distinction of Les Mains sales is that it is Aki Kaurismäki's sole faithful film adaptation. It is probably also his most talkative film. It is based on Jean-Paul Sartre's play from 1948. The play premiered immediately also in Helsinki in the autumn of 1948 at the National Theatre. We still had the Control Commission of the Allied Forces based in Hotel Torni in Helsinki, in reality a Soviet commission. The chairman was no other than Andrei Zhdanov. In December Sartre's play was withdrawn as an act of political self-censorship.
It may seem paradoxical that this film is so faithful to the original play, yet feels integral to the Kaurismäki corpus. But Kaurismäki has been strongly influenced by Existentialism, and at one stage he stated in an interview that he is 60% Existentialist. Some of the most typically Akiesque dialogue in this movie stems directly from Sartre. Most importantly, Sartre's irony has close affinities with Kaurismäki.
(Based on my introduction to the screening.)
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: PROGRAM NOTE BY PETER VON BAGH: IL CINEMA RITROVATO, BOLOGNA, 2015:
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: PROGRAM NOTE BY PETER VON BAGH: IL CINEMA RITROVATO, BOLOGNA, 2015:
Gian Luca Farinelli: "Why did we choose Les Mains sales? Peter von Bagh really loved this ‘invisible’ film by Aki Kaurismäki, and he had asked me for years to convince Aki to bring it to Bologna. The miracle of seeing the film at Il Cinema Ritrovato happens this year, in honor and in memory of Peter and thanks to Aki’s generosity. The screening is the seal of friendship between our festival and the Midnight Sun Film Festival, founded and organized by Aki and Peter with unflagging enthusiasm and a true love of cinema." Gian Luca Farinelli
PETER VON BAGH:
"Likaiset kädet is Aki Kaurismäki’s sole television movie. It was shot in seven days on 16 mm stock – video he refuses to touch. The cast was a dream team in the most complete casting of the director’s trusted ensemble. This film has also special status as Kaurismäki’s only period movie. The Sartrean irony of history turns out to have a ghostly affinity with Kaurismäki’s Weltanschauung."
"Essential here is the concept of the sketch, dismantling the heavy obligation of illustration. Kaurismäki does not design sets for the milieu or the period cinematically or even with traditional theatrical means. Les Mains sales is a skilled game of opposites, a blend of freedom and almost pathetic fidelity. Hugo is played by Matti Pellonpää. His, and the other actors’, way of conveying the dialogue is laconic recital by rote – with minuscule oddities and oblique deviations. It is Sartre read like a telephone directory. In a way Kaurismäki has recorded a rehearsal for Les Mains sales."
"Many elements in the movie have been taken directly from Sartre’s play, and often these elements seem most Kaurismäki-like. Meanwhile the director has added his own signature everywhere, as he seems to add something of his own to his actors’ images and his cinematographers’ shots: a surprising twist, a touch signaling a strange direction or some suddenly injected inconsistent and often anachronistic nuance. Which is why each shot, whether quoted or original, is interesting, as are the performances that remain hidden beneath almost immovable masks. The issues are serious. You have to prove to comrades that you are able to kill and die if the party tells you to."
"The sense of space is tense and interesting in spite of the limitations due to the tight production schedule. When Hugo, having escaped from prison, turns up all of a sudden at Olga’s (Kaija Pakarinen) place, the sense of freedom is instantly strange: “In prison I was at least able to touch the walls”. A feeling of vertigo emerges from the set-up indicated in the title. Everything takes place in almost entirely windowless interiors and ugly rooms where political duties resembling chess moves are discussed. Even the most private word is not innocent but located in the same force field as the political power play and the law of weapons. They are all both systematic and arbitrary circumstances of life in a most profound way." Peter von Bagh, Aki Kaurismäki, Karisto Oy, Hämeenlinna 2006 (program note edited and translated into English by Antti Alanen)
Cast and Credits
Sog.: liberamente tratto dalla pièce omonima di Jean-Paul Sartre. Sc.: Aki Kaurismäki. F.: Matti Kurkikangas. M.: Outi Harjupatana, Mari Ropponen. Scgf.: Risto Karhula. Int.: Matti Pellonpää (Hugo), Kati Outinen (Jessica), Sulevi Peltola (Hoederer), Kaija Pakarinen (Olga), Pertti Sveholm (Louis), Kari Väänänen (Ivan), Pirkka-Pekka Petelius (Slick), Aake Kalliala (Georges), Esko Nikkari (Karsky). Prod.: Hannu Kahakorpi per Yleisradio TV1 / Sputnik Oy. DCP. Col.
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