In every Aki Kaurismäki film ever

it's very Kaurismaki

The Match Factory Girl reminded me quite a lot of Bresson's L'Argent.

ports

Gaps

Less than 80 min running time

plaintiveness

Jukebox playing to a near empty room

mechanical cruelty

strangers finding instant rapport

beached souls

what all this is reminding me of is ali: fear eats the soul

unappetising meals

His Criterion list is great btw and includes a Bresson and a FassbinderL

https://www.criterion.com/current/top-10-lists/163-aki-kaurism-ki-s-top-10

oh wow thanks for that. love how he breaks the rules of the format by pretending that every position is a tie.

On reflection, Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses doesn't conform to a lot of these rules, and also it is terrible.

this is a bit tangential, but the Kaurismäki brothers own (owned?) a couple of bars in Helsinki. One of them is/was called Moscow. I visited it many years ago. There were thick curtains at the windows blocking the view inside and the only indication of the place was a small piece of paper taped on the window that only read Moscow (in cyrillic letters obviously).

Inside it was brightly lit and very small and it looked exactly like every bar in a Kaurismäki film, very plain and red painted walls. There was only one tap with cheap lager and the background music was melancholic Russian music from the 60's or maybe 70's. The whole experience felt like I stepped inside a Kaurismäki film.

The rumour is that it originally was called something else and was very popular, but Kaurismäki wasn't happy with that and wanted a bar where people can drink in peace so they retooled the concept. And in the winter they shovel snow to the outside of the front door to make it appear like it's closed.