A slovenly man makes himself a meal of sausage, liver casserole and eggs, seasoning it with salt and pepper. He sits up and eats the finished dish while watching the city darkening through the blinds — his gaze full of sadness, empathy, and concern.

This scene from Shadows in Paradise, focusing on the melancholic everyday reality of a garbage collector played by Matti Pellonpää, is probably one of the most iconic in Aki Kaurismäki’s early filmography. But already lurking in the background here was the beginning of a new Finnish cinema. With a few exceptions, cinema in this country had been plagued by a lack of ambition in both content and technique. Cinemas were mainly kept open by ungainly folk comedies. But in the second half of the 1980s, things changed. The technical quality of Finnish films grew, and the content became more serious. This turnaround would perhaps not have happened at this stage without Kaurismäki.

Few have dared to copy Kaurismäki’s style directly. Yet, he had a powerful influence on his homeland’s cineastes, especially as a portrayer of grim realism. He continues in the tradition of Mikko Niskanen and Risto Jarva, whose films depicted the ruthless human condition in Finnish society. Leading man Pellonpää, known as a bohemian, gave a face to this new tendency to tell stories about people who have failed or been marginalized in their lives.