Three men, one bar, a stranger who won't leave — pandemic tension with Finnish melancholy.
The three men enjoy the evening at a bar whose fate is threatened by pandemic restrictions. Bartender Heikki offers discussion help to his friend Risto, who works in the first line of healthcare, and who has just finished a difficult shift. The evening gets a new twist when a stranger looking for a mobile phone charger pops in and refuses to leave.
Acting
Veteran Finnish actors improvising raw exhaustion and unspoken history.
Direction
Kaurismäki lets silence do the screaming for him.
Director
Mika Kaurismäki
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Shot during actual 2020 COVID restrictions in Helsinki, with bars facing real closure threats — the anxiety is documentary-level authentic.
The Kaurismäki brothers (Mika and Aki) have defined Finnish cinema's deadpan melancholy for decades; this continues Mika's looser, more improvisational branch of the family tree.
FI
