Shadows in Paradise (1986) review

A dour garbage man fancies a dour grocery store cashier - he asks her out and takes her to Bingo, and she's not exactly 'won over' … but he's persistent. It's so low, low, low-key and taciturn it doesn't make much of an emotional impact - its numbness can't help but lead to a kind of viewer ennui (the eccentric touches, like the ever-present rock & roll, are quite welcome). Still, the decision to film the conditions of the lower class and neglected isn't common - Kaurismäki made a trilogy of movies about the 'proles' - and this expresses genuine concern for the working conditions of its less fortunate (notably, the couple leave Helsinki on a cruise ship with a very prominent sickle-and-hammer on it).