[Film Essay] On Director Kaurismäki's "Pineapple Zoom"

As any fan of director Aki Kaurismäki knows, he makes frequent use of zooms that slowly creep up on a character's face. In every one of his films, this appears a few times at just the right moment. In 'Le Havre,' this zoom was also applied to the pineapple brought by the inspector, and since I was surprised by this, I have taken to calling this technique the 'Pineapple Zoom' on my own.

By the way, is this a cliché? Kaurismäki's works certainly have a quality that puts the viewer at ease (even before watching), and there is a certain blatantness to his direction—a sense of exposed technique, as if someone who had just learned cinematic methods were saying, 'Look, I tried this.' I am the type of person who finds that interesting, but I sometimes suspect that the reason critics are reluctant to write at length about Kaurismäki is that they might perceive this as conservative.

For example, the husband-and-wife duo Straub-Huillet, who are like the godparents of the 'avant-garde,' attack all works involving 'clichés' by calling them 'pornography' or 'commercial films' (as cited in Jun Hirose's 'The Stone Screams' from 'Cahiers du Cinéma Japon'). In his new book, 'An Illustrated Guide to Analyzing Masterpiece Films Through a Director's Quirks,' the same Jun Hirose writes the following about Wes Anderson's quirk of 'flatness':

'However, this also means that even entities that might have introduced something like a difference—something heterogeneous to the Wes world—are homogenized under the logic of the Wes world, stripped of their difference, and forced to assimilate. There is a fear that this will cause the film to become rigid, with every work ending up the same.'

In other words, Hirose, the author of 'Theory of Despair,' is on the verge of despair, crying 'No exit!' regarding a world that is being covered by the Wes system (i.e., the Wes style). (As for the logic, he goes on to search for the 'outside' of that system, but let's set that aside for now.)

However, turning back to the matter, don't 'ordinary' viewers, who do not have such high aspirations as the Straubs or Mr. Hirose, go to the theater precisely because they want to see the Wes style? Or perhaps they rejoice, saying, 'Kaurismäki is doing the same thing again.' To put it more colloquially, don't they shout 'Here it comes!' when Yumi Kaoru takes a bath or the 'inro' (seal case) is revealed in the 'Mito Komon' series?

How one deals with clichés is a personal matter. In my view, the majority of people in the world actually enjoy clichés, and it seems to be only a few people with very high aspirations (and this is not meant as a mockery) who lament them. In any case, since I have been able to develop my thoughts this far from the 'Pineapple Zoom,' I would like to leave further reflection to the readers. Whether Kaurismäki is conservative or innovative—I believe that is an important question.