I Hired a Contract Killer

I only saw this movie once, over a decade ago. It was horrible. Noone laughed or even smiled in it, all the scenery was bleak, the story was depressing, and it almost made the audience feel suicidal as well (like the protagonist).

But, with each passing year, I like this movie more. I'm very much looking forward to seeing it again. It actually is a great comedy, but it took me years to understand that.

Should you see it? Definitely. I still remember this obscure movie after over 10 years and although I hated it at first. It inspired me enough to write this comment here. About how many movies can you say that?

The premise of this film is funny and odd: an employee of a British company loses his job, and because there is nothing to life for, he decides to end it right there. But all the attempts on his own life fail. Still determined, he decides to hire a contract killer - and have himself murdered.

While waiting for the executioner in his apartment, he grows bored and decides to visit a bar across the street. There he indulges himself, for the first time, in hard liquor and cigarettes. As if this wouldn't be upsetting enough to his short remaining life span, he meets a flower girl with blood-red lips. Resolutely, he demands that she sits next to him, and inevitably falls in love. All over sudden, life isn't so despicable anymore - what to do? The contract killer is still on his heels...

Kaurismäki takes this story as an occasion to revive his cinematic universe: people standing at a bar and slowly lifting a glass of beer, others sitting in front of worn-out wallpapers while smoking a cigarette. The camera lingers as if those quiet moments were a subtle study of humans on the fringes of society. They are connected through the central theme of the film, but the main focus lies on Henri Boulanger, the former employee. Stoically and with a deadpan face, he undergoes the metamorphosis of his existence, subtly expressing his newfound hunger for life. Standing in a bar and listening to an unknown guitarist (Joe Strummer), he lifts his drink and takes a long gulp. From all we know, this is the equivalent of a spontaneous expression of joy in Finland. You are required to observe and listen quite carefully, but if you do, this very refrained way of celebrating the small pleasures of everyday life is not less powerful, especially against the background of Henri's rather meaningless existence. Kaursimäki doesn't need any loud effects or tearful scenes to convince us, he doesn't even need dialogue, of which there is very little in the film. He tells the story purely through the images and the strong, yet sparing expressions of his protagonists. The lighting of the scenes is somber and full of strong contrasts, giving the film it's own unique visual mark. I Hired a Contract Killer is like a slow burning fire that still provides warmth long after the big fireworks are spent.

Do you like classics? Do you have a thing for Hitchcock, or lets say, Jean Pierre Melville? Do you wanna see how does that translate into a more modern progressive movie? Well! here is what you do: You go straight to a club and you purchase 'I Hired a Contract Killer'! It sticks with you; the futility, the humor, and the suspense. This is a picture that no matter what, you gonna remember for ever. The futility is so rich, that itself becomes the core meaning to everything. And the situation gets so baffled that emptiness becomes a survival. The suspension is perfectly 'Hitchcokic'& the use of music is great. It is among the pictures that secures you; makes you sure that still cinema exists; A cinema that tells you a story, a breathtaking one - and damn, Kourismaki is a great story teller; a noble one. One of the few left from the true heritage of motion picture industry and art. Lay back, watch and enjoy. This is pure cinema. As you might have guessed, I fully recommend it!

I watched a documentary about Aki Kaurimaki (one of my favourite directors) in which he stated that he was sick and tired of pages and pages of dialogue he had written ending up on the cutting room floor. So he keeps the dialogue to a minimum. This film is a perfect example of this philosophy. This is Kaurismaki's trademark. Anyone who has seen "Leningrad Cowboys Go America" or "Arial" will recognise his sparing use of dialogue rather than having characters speak just for the sake of speaking. It is no wonder that his most recent film "Juha" was a silent film.

This is a very dark and very realistic film about loneliness and depression. All the main characters in the film are lonely people, with very little to live for. Anyone who liked Tom Di Cillo's "Johnny Suede" will find that this is a very film to "I hired a Contract Killer". Personally, I loved this film and would highly recommend it to anyone with an appreciation for fine art house cinema.

The problem of Henri Boulanger is similar to that of Odysseus who told his friends to tighten him up at a pole of his ship before they drive through Scylla and Charybdis, and, to never obey him if he asks them to loose the ties, because otherwise he will be lost for either of the two monsters. In the case of Henry Boulanger it is so that this sober, never-drinking, never womanizing Kafkaesque office-worker suddenly looses his job, when the company wants to shrink. Boulanger, who never had tasted the sweet delirium of alcohol and the seductive odor of cigarettes, does not know a catalytic spirit of auxiliary constructions that would help him over the shock of having lost his job. So, he does what nobody else would do in his situation: he hires a contract killer. However, shortly after having paid the sum to kill himself, he enters a bar where they do not sell tea, so, for the first time, under the horizon of his life coming to a soon end, he drinks whiskey after whiskey, learns how good this is for him and smokes cigarette after cigarette, greedily trying to catch up what he had missed his whole life. There, in the bar, he meets Margaret, his first and therefore biggest love of his life. Clearly, having tasted the real fruits of life, he does not want to die anymore. But how can he make his killers clear that he want to withdraw from his contract? While Odysseus stays cuffed on his pole, Boulanger errs lost like Odysseus through London.