Le Havre (2011)

This is a French movie by a Finnish director, and it has a charming  Buster Keaton deadpan humor kind of feel about it.  The wonderful things that I adore in French films are present, but there is also a plot.  Just lovely.

The story follows a ne'er-do-well shoe shine man, Marcel (André Wilms).  He is cobbling out a minimal existence with his wife, Arletty in a community that lets him buy bread on credit and the shop owners cloe up when he walks by for fear that he will take more wares on credit that he cannot pay for.  His life is in slow motion—nothing much happens, nothing much changes.  That is until he gets involved with an on-the-run young African migrant, Idrissa.  Idrissa is found in a container from a ship that has been unexpectedly delayed en route to London, and a police officer Marcel knows well is tasked with finding the boy.  The cop turns out to have a heart, and redeems himself in Marcel’s eyes by the end of the movie.  The film is set in the port city of the same name, and Marcel sets about both hiding the boy, and finding out who he is and how he might help him.  "Le Havre" above all adheres to Kaurismäki's aesthetic of expressionlessness.  His actors must convey what they're feeling without changing the look on their faces.  They do this with remarkable results, and the film is a joy to watch.

A droll ode to the downtrodden and dispossessed, "Le Havre" joins Ari Kaurismäki's unmistakable stylistic flourishes with two things additional features: an overt social conscience and a sweet-natured fairy tale sensibility.