A traveling salesman leaves his wife, sells his stock and uses the money to get into a high stakes poker game. He buys what turns out to be a failing restaurant. I don't know why he didn't just earn a living as a gambler. But he befriends a Syrian refugee fleeing deportation. He finds him outside the restaurant so he takes him inside and feeds him.
Directed by Aki Kaurismaki. The acting is deadpan which is nice, really. As with his other movies, the film is nicely lit which gives it kind of an old fashioned look. He'd made another movie, Le Havre, in France, with a similar subject. Without a thought, people help a refugee, a young African teenager in that movie.
Several scenes of bands playing what might be popular dance music in Finland. The salesman drives around in a Checker Marathon which was the passenger car version of the old Checker taxicab built in Detroit from 1961 to 1982.
There's a band of neo-Nazis walking around attacking refugees. In one scene, homeless Finns come to the refugee's aid.
The movie may have been more instructive than realistic, telling us how to conduct ourselves in situations like this. If you see a Nazi attacking someone, hit him over the head with a wine bottle. The salesman/gambler/restauranteur wasn't really a nice a guy, but he did what he could to help a war refugee.
I watched it on the Criterion Channel.
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