Aki Kaurismäki's Le Havre (2011)

Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki's film Le Havre has obviously been compared to Philippe Nioret's Welcome, which also involved illegal immigrants (although in Calais), but as a surreal version of that film. Certainly some of the subjects talked about in the movie – which is almost entirely based in Le Havre, and in the working-class fishing area Saint-François –  veer towards the surreal, as does Commissionnaire Monet (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) giving a pineapple to his friend Claire (Elina Salo), the patronne of La Moderne bar; and so too does the baker Yvette (Evelyne Didi) reading the very sick Arletty (Kati Outinen) to sleep in hospital with a short story by Kafka.

But this is not a tale of the surreal – it's more of a fairy story shot through with (not-too-)noirish elements. One reviewer called it a homage to Marcel Carné's cinema at the time of his collaborations with Jacques Prévert, and this seems to be a fair if slightly-off-target assessment.

Above all, the film harkens back to a time when working-class neighbours helped each other, talked about their problems, and went out of their way to help the underdog, particularly people in a less fortunate situation than themselves. The movie is to some extent – and this too is part of the surrealism – set in a recent but non-specific past, or maybe more accurately in a number of different periods in the past: there's a reference to the immigrant situation in Calais on the television, a handbook dated 2002, but there are a number of cars from different decades, and there is positively no sign at all of a computer or a mobile phone of any period.

The central role is taken by the elderly Marcel Marx (André Wilms) – a former writer now eking out a living as a shoe shiner based in the town. He welcomes into his home the pre-teen Idrissa (Blondin Miguel), who has arrived in Le Havre via a container shipment from Gabon, although unlike the other illegal passengers he has escaped from the French police and now being actively sought, the sinister-looking Commissionnaire Monet heading the search team which is all the time drawing closer to its target.

Idrissa's father is dead but his mother lives in London and he wants to join her. But he must obviously keep out of sight as much as possible, although Marcel's neighbours (including patronne Claire) are fully aware of the situation, and everyone seems to be fully supportive of Idrissa. Finding out where Idrissa's mother lives, Marcel then finds the owner of a small fishing vessel who is willing to smuggle the boy into England for 3000 euros, which of course Marcel doesn't have. But then he thinks of the (real) ageing rock singer from Le Havre, Little Bob: if he could get him to give a come-back benefit performance the boy would be saved.

And, in spite of difficulties, this is what Marcel does, although as soon as he's on the moored boat handing his contact the money, along comes Monet who discovers the 'stowaway'. But – and here's the first miracle – Monet has a heart too and sits on the hatch and dismisses his cop friends: Idrissa is free to go to join his mother. And – another miracle – Marcel's wife Arletty is completely cured.

Yeah, a fairy story which came just a few days before Xmas 2011. Bit players include – in obvious homage to François Truffaut – Jean-Pierre Léaud as the informer. And the improbable doctor by the eighty-something Pierre Étaix.

At the end of the film, Monet accepts Marcel's offer of a drink, and says he'll have a calva (his usual drink). In the background are two bars with significant names: 'Au Retour à la mer' ('Return to the sea') and 'Grand Carrefour' ('Big Crossroad'). One cover of the DVD of Le Havre shows Marcel, Idrissa, Laika the lovable dog, Monet as a black shadow, Marcel's shoeshine equipment – and a pineapple! There was something of a mixed response to this film: the critics loved it, but the public found it painfully slow. I'm on the critics' side: this is a wonderful, and very clever, film.