After a stunning debut, Crime and Punishment, and a bizarre, experimental second feature, Calamari Union, Aki Kaurismäki began doing what he's best at: telling the stories of Finnish underdogs'everyday experiences. And it all started with Shadows in Paradise, the first installment of the "workers trilogy" (continued with Ariel and The Match Factory Girl), and arguably Kaurismäki's finest film (at least until he made The Man Without a Past). It also marked his first collaboration with Kati Outinen, who has become the very symbol, alongside the late Matti Pellonpää, of Kaurismäki's cinema.

Fittingly, Pellonpää and Outinen are the leading couple of shadows in Paradise. He reprises the role of Nikander he previously played in Crime and Punishment, with more English lessons (which originate his best line, at the end of the film) and trouble at work: his plans to start his own business get buried with his associate (Esko Nikkari), who commits suicide five minutes into the movie. While looking for a new job, he meets Ilona (Outinen), who works as a cashier in a Helsinki supermarket. The two start hanging out, eventually forming a sweet, if platonic, bond, occasionally threatened by Nikander's apparent cynicism.

The film's magic resides entirely in its minimalism: little dialogue, sober settings, raw, Finnish humor, real, likable characters and no overacting, as Kaurismäki tells his simple, universal, incredibly touching love story. Pellonpää and Outinen's understated, affecting performances complete each other, with valuable support from Sakari Kuosmanen as Melartin, Nikander's best friend, who even steals from his own daughter to finance his buddy's dates. Not that his behavior is exemplary, but it shows how much these people care for each other, and that's where Kaurismäki succeeds: he makes us emphasize with these characters despite their many flaws, and delivers an astounding, memorable picture.

A true masterpiece of Finnish film-making, from the best director that country has ever spawned.

Some random observations:

1. Kaurismaki's "paradise" is grimy city streets, garbage, landfills, jails, flophouses, shabby apartments. Two kinds of people inhabit this Eden: either the few, the snooty, the well off – or the subverbal, poorly educated quasi-lumpen stumbling about among the aforementioned sites. The settings, both exterior and interior, belong more to the England of "The L Shaped Room" or "Billy Liar" than to the Scandinavia of travel agency brochures.

2. Kaurismaki delivers virtuoso satire founded upon the stereotypical shy, wordless Finn. But he offers more by pushing beyond stereotype to display a deep familiarity with the kind of people he shows on the screen. An American director similarly so in tune with his people might be Kevin Smith. A possible British counterpart? Maybe Ken Loach.

3. "Shadows in Paradise" is also a testament to Kaurismaki's confidence in the cinematic medium itself, in its power to tell stories using sight and sound without principal reliance on the material of theater or literature – words. We are accustomed to the many films about how XX meets XY, where the characters express feelings, establish plot, indeed, do just about everything through words. Sometimes we even get entire orations, regardless of a film's "realistic" intent. Dialogue rules everything from the quippy screenplays of Nora Ephron or Preston Sturges to the tangly Gallic word-webs of Eric Rohmer. The similarities between Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair in "Marty" and Matti Pellonpaa and Kati Outinen in "Shadows in Paradise" end with "Marty's" theatrical, dialogue-soaked provenance. It would be hard to transfer this film of Kaurismaki to page or stage. The story would weaken and likely die in print or any exclusively verbal form.

4. For his comedy Kaurismaki employs a delay-deadpan technique, something familiar to anyone who has seen the "punishment" sequences in Laurel and Hardy's "Tit for Tat' (1935) or who remembers the standup routines of Jackie Vernon in the 60's. Kaurismaki's comedies – and "Shadows in Paradise" is a good example – prove the technique still achieves the desired result: laughs. And like Jackie Vernon or Laurel and Hardy, Kaurismaki makes his words just another ingredient in the comedy. They are well chosen and sometimes hilarious but enjoy no special preference.

5. The movie screened the other night on TCM with the host's caution that this is an unusual sort of romantic comedy – but why the caution? And why the need for any "category" in the first place? To call this a "romantic comedy" and then warn people about its "quirky" or "offbeat"nature does it a double disservice. The warning for possible category transgression either implies that the film is deficient for disregarding certain "rules", or cautions the audience that it will be disappointed, since the movie does things it probably won't accept. But comedy, like so many things in life generally, thrives on surprise. In "Shadows in Paradise", Kaurismaki presents modern, free, prosperous Finland as a bizarre and rather dismal place which he proceeds to mine for laughter and the occasional tear. Whatever a television host labels it, the movie manages to be funny, entertaining – and accessible.

6. A Kaurismaki movie has a distinctive "feel", as strongly trademarked as the comedies of Lubitsch or Sennett.

(possible spoiler in third-to-last paragraph, if taken in context)

Before the late great film critic Jay Scott left this planet in the early 1990's, the "Globe and Mail" critic also hosted a weekly television program, "Film International", which provided an invaluable resource of foreign films for those in Ontario who wouldn't have access to them otherwise. One of the crowning events of this series was the month-long collection of Aki Kaurismaki films (and one by his brother, Mika). Then as now, Kaurismaki

largely remains a well-kept secret among the film festival circuit. His delightfully deadpan works seldom get picked up for distribution in North America, which is a tragedy. He is one of the most original and interesting international filmmakers of the past quarter century.

SHADOWS IN PARADISE was the first Kaurismaki film I ever saw, and of the eight or so I have screened since, this remains one of his finest works, and a valuable introduction to his world. It is a shame that this is still not available on video. Like his contemporary and friend, Jim Jarmusch, Kaurismaki makes films about anhedonic expressionless underdogs who mostly sit around and brood. (Is it any accident that this film is similarily titled to Jarmusch's STRANGER THAN PARADISE?) Both men take the simple set-up of Warhol filmmaking to another level. Their films are full of unobtrusive single-take scenes (or at least with minimal editing), moving portraits of lonely disenchanted people, very addictive viewing because you never know what happens next. Like Jarmusch or Chantal Akerman, Kaurismaki is a master of minimalist filmmaking.

But what separates his work from others is his expert use of offscreen imagery (a kiss is represented by a hand holding a cigarette), the surprising spontaneity of his miserable characters (because the garbageman finds a record at the dump, he suddenly purchases a brand new stereo system in order to listen to it!), and a tacked-on, deliberately absurd happy ending (which impossibly gets his people out of the worst situations) which is meant to be his sly comment on the Hollywood films he despises.

Like any great film auteur such as Altman, Fellini, Preston Surges, or even Almodovar, Kaurismaki's films are peopled with unforgettable, unique faces via his own stock company. Matti Pellonpaa is perfect as the garbage man (his slicked-back hair, big glasses and droopy moustache make him the quintessential oddball underdog), as is the blank-faced Kati Outinen, the recently fired supermarket cashier who finds romance with this man. Her flat, pale visage is like death warmed over-- her only cinematic equivalent is Falconetti in LA PASSION DE JEANNE D'ARC.

SHADOWS IN PARADISE is the first of Kaurismaki's "loser" trilogy (followed by ARIEL and THE MATCH FACTORY GIRL). It is a hilariously deadpan, wonderfully dark, yet strangely sweet, and compulsive viewing experience. It is a crime that this movie has not been picked up by a video label. However you can, see this film!