Customer Reviews

The Match Factory Girl [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The essential clues will be found through a meticulous analysis of the viewer all along the story .
The serious breakdown of the girl can not be seen as an isolated fact . Kaurismaki through his merciless eye-camera will lead to a dead city where the relationships are not cold . Simply they are absent . The emotive liasons are not present in her vocabulary and her loneliness , despair and hopeless will make of her a little monster closed behind a shell created to prevent of any human being .
Her unhappy affair with that nasty boyfriend is the last drop that will surpass the glass before she decides to cross the forbidden line between sanity and insanity .
It is not a simple revenge . It a statement against a not human world deaf , mude and blind .
A must see this minimalist and clever film of Finland .

Aki Kaurismaki's 1990 film TULITIKKUTEHTAAN TYTTÖ (The Match Factory Girl) caps a loose trilogy where the Finnish auteur explored the tribulations of lower-class lonely hearts. This Amazon listing describes a standalone DVD, but you can now get this film along with the other instalments of the "Proletariat Trilogy" in a Criterion Collection box set.

The protagonist of TULITIKKUTEHTAAN TYTTÖ is Iris (Kati Outinen), a taciturn 20-something who still lives with, and financially supports, her layabout parents (Elina Salo, Esko Nikkari). Iris has no real social life to speak of, being ignored by co-workers and, at her nightly excursions to dance halls, by men. After meeting wealthy businessman Aarne (Vesa Vierikko), she thinks she has found happiness, but is cruelly abandoned by him and then her parents. Though she doesn't visibly snap, the pressures take their toll, and she gets her revenge on those who have done her wrong...

As the film progresses, radio and television in the background report the news of Chinese government forces suppressing the protest in Tiananmen Square. That overt political focus is something rather unusual for Kaurismäki. He has usually included some criticism of state bureaucracy in his films, but here the film is entirely a metaphor for what might happen if the people are held down too hard and too long. Kati Outinen has one of the quirkiest faces in cinema, but here makeup and lighting accentuate those looks and she becomes the very image of misery.

TULITIKKUTEHTAAN TYTTÖ fits with Kaurismäki's general aesthetic in that the film features décor and music from the 1950s, although it is ostensibly set in the present day. His penchant for minimal dialogue here is taken even further than usual. What sets this film apart from the rest of his output, however, is that it lacks his characteristic deadpan humour. Even when he focuses on the underdogs staying under, there's usually some chuckles in his work. Consequently, I found TULITIKKUTEHTAAN TYTTÖ often unpleasantly bleak, less enjoyable than his other films. Nonetheless, the streamlined script and careful cinematography make this a film worth seeing at least once.

1990. Written and directed by Aki Kaurismäki. 4 Finnish Academy awards. The tragic story of Iris, a working-class girl looking for love. Superb.

You are going to love this minimalist fable from one of the greatest directors of all time: Aki Kaurismaki. A finnish awesome talent.

Kati Outinen is a deadpan madonna that can take you anywhere. You like her - the poor match factory girl? Cuidado. You may be riding the anchor instead of the boat. A doormat that bites! I'm thinking Sandrine Bonnaire on Quaaludes - or Bette Davis as Helen Keller. After you see this film, for an antidote, watch Kati in "The Man Without a Past."

I think I counted only 13 or 14 spoken words in thismovie. There may have been fewer, I am not sure. Naturally, then, thisis a film you must watch to appreciate. It is remarkable what depthand nuance can be conveyed simply by looking at pictures on ascreen. A rather dreary tale is told here about a homely,wallflowerish girl who lives with her parents and works in a matchfactory. She gives her entire income to her family, but one day spotsa dress in the window of a shop and spends some of her earnings onit. She wears it to a club, where she is approached by a man for whatseems to be the first time in her life. ... Again, this is quite adreary film, but it was worthwhile to view it. Also it is a thoughtprovoking film in that it makes you evaluate the people who surroundyou... maybe perfect strangers that you see in your school orworkplace. They seem quiet, shy, unassuming, and the next day they aremurderers. In my high school years, actually, there were an alarmingnumber of people with whom I attended school who ended up beingconnected to murders in one way or another, and this film made merecall these sorts of feelings and thoughts, wondering about what goeson in people's heads to lead them to such rash acts.

Minimalist tale of an alienated young proletarian with all the basic problems somebody can have in that situation: dysfunctional family, abuse and loneliness. The end seems like the only exit possible from the situation, and is a shame that is like this. Is not enchanting like "Moving Clouds" and doesn't have that kind of off-beat humor from "The Man from Nowhere"... Is slow, methodical and inflexible, but nevertheless we feel for the protagonist (the same blond girl from those two films). Not for a depressing Saturday night.

At first you think that you are watching the most depressing film ever made, but then things go completely awry. Very funny.

70 wasted minutes, and I believe that I have a large interest and tolerance in trying out diverse films. There are far more clever and intriguing films out there that plumb the depths of revenge and meager existences.

Is this art? Excuse my ignorance but these were the worst 2 hours I have ever spent in my life. I just sit there waiting for the "movie" to start and it just ended. This movie is depressing, ugly, makes no sense whatsoever, pseudo art ..., good for some depressed Finish audience on a looonnnggg winter night. Have fun.