Malla Hukkanen

The Shadows in the Paradise

The exhibition «Shadows in Paradise» is full of photographs of Aki Kaurismäki’s film productions, people and cities transport the viever from mood to mood and country to country. These studies capture not only the director at work, but also his regular actors — for instance Matti Pellonpää and Kati Outinen — in many touching scenes. After the first exhibition which was created to celebrate the first 100 years of cinema, a photography book was published 1997 by Otava based on this exhibition. Since the first appearance there has been added some stills of Aki’s latest films «Juha» and «The man without a past»

From the foreword of the book:
«...Marja-Leena Hukkanen (née Helin) is an insider, a regular member of Kaurismaki’s production team, ever-present as the script-girl and stills photographer in an unobtrusive yet perceptive way. She does not miss a thing. Cinema still photography is an art form of its 0’wn, in -which Hollywood, French and British photographers attained classic status. In Finland some superb work was done in the field during the studio era, but since perhaps the sixties the field has been slightly neglected — that is until Hukkanen’s inspired work. Thanks to her, we have stills which as such are not in the finished film but which have captured the very spirit of the film. We can behold rare flashes never seen before of the filmmakers somewhere midst of work and play, sometimes concentrating, sometimes laughing at some crazy joke, portraying their characters and themselves -fleeting moments which have captured the intensity, madness and enthusiasm of filmmaking...» by Peter von Bagh