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IMDbPro

The Other Side of Hope

Original title: Toivon tuolla puolen
  • 2017
  • Not Rated
  • 1h 40m
IMDb RATING
7.2/10
13K
YOUR RATING
The Other Side of Hope (2017)
The Oscar-winning actress shares a special list of films that inspire hope in an effort to help support those without a place to call home amidst our global health crisis.
Play clip4:30
Watch Cate Blanchett's Films of Hope
1 Video
31 Photos
ComedyDrama

A poker-playing restaurateur and former traveling salesman befriends a group of refugees newly arrived to Finland.A poker-playing restaurateur and former traveling salesman befriends a group of refugees newly arrived to Finland.A poker-playing restaurateur and former traveling salesman befriends a group of refugees newly arrived to Finland.

  • Director
    • Aki Kaurismäki
  • Writer
    • Aki Kaurismäki
  • Stars
    • Sherwan Haji
    • Sakari Kuosmanen
    • Kaija Pakarinen
  • See production, box office & company info
  • IMDb RATING
    7.2/10
    13K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Aki Kaurismäki
    • Writer
      • Aki Kaurismäki
    • Stars
      • Sherwan Haji
      • Sakari Kuosmanen
      • Kaija Pakarinen
    • 39User reviews
    • 164Critic reviews
    • 84Metascore
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 8 wins & 24 nominations

    Videos1

    Cate Blanchett's Films of Hope
    Clip 4:30
    Watch Cate Blanchett's Films of Hope

    Photos31

    Elias Westerberg in The Other Side of Hope (2017)
    The Other Side of Hope (2017)
    Aki Kaurismäki and Sherwan Haji in The Other Side of Hope (2017)
    Aki Kaurismäki and Sherwan Haji in The Other Side of Hope (2017)
    The Other Side of Hope (2017)
    Kati Outinen in The Other Side of Hope (2017)
    Janne Hyytiäinen, Ilkka Koivula, Sakari Kuosmanen, Nuppu Koivu, and Sherwan Haji in The Other Side of Hope (2017)
    Simon Al-Bazoon and Sherwan Haji in The Other Side of Hope (2017)
    Sherwan Haji and Niroz Haji in The Other Side of Hope (2017)
    Sakari Kuosmanen, Simon Al-Bazoon, and Sherwan Haji in The Other Side of Hope (2017)
    Sherwan Haji in The Other Side of Hope (2017)
    Marko Haavisto, Jouni Saario, Samuli Halonen, and Jaakko Rossi in The Other Side of Hope (2017)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Sherwan Haji
    Sherwan Haji
    • Khaled
    Sakari Kuosmanen
    Sakari Kuosmanen
    • Waldemar Wikström
    Kaija Pakarinen
    Kaija Pakarinen
    • Wikströmin vaimo
    Tuomari Nurmio
    Tuomari Nurmio
    • Katusoittaja
    Abdi Jama
    • Aseman kassa
    • (as Abdi alias 'Lii' Jama)
    Antti Virmavirta
    • Poliisi asemalla
    Timo Torikka
    Timo Torikka
    • Poliisi asemalla
    Simon Al-Bazoon
    • Mazdak
    • (as Simon Hussein Al-Bazoon)
    Olli Varja
    • Juoppo
    Pia Riihioja
    • Vaatekaupan myyjä
    Kati Outinen
    Kati Outinen
    • Vaatetusliikkeen omistajatar
    Maria Järvenhelmi
    Maria Järvenhelmi
    • Vastaanottokeskuksen virkailija
    Katja Tolonen
    • Vastaanottokeskuksen virkailija
    Mohamed Awad
    • Issa
    Seppo Väisänen
    • Migrin vahtimestari
    Milka Ahlroth
    Milka Ahlroth
    • Migrin haastattelija
    Karar Al-Bazoon
    • Migrin tulkki
    Ismo Haavisto
    • Kitaristi baarin ovella
    • Director
      • Aki Kaurismäki
    • Writer
      • Aki Kaurismäki
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      The actors playing siblings Khaled and Miriam are real-life siblings.
    • Quotes

      Khaled: I don't understand humour.

    • Connections
      Featured in What to Watch: Cate Blanchett's Films of Hope (2020)
    • Soundtracks
      Oi mutsi, mutsi
      Written and performed by Tuomari Nurmio

    User reviews39

    Review
    Review
    Featured review
    6/10
    Kaurismäki tells a story, to his perennial template of deadpan humour, old-time music, and drab settings, of a Syrian refugee
    In Aki Kaurismäki's 2016 film TOIVON TUOLLA PUOLEN ("The Other Side of Hope"), the Finnish auteur continues a theme he explored in LE HAVRE from five years earlier: refugees fleeing to Europe and forced to survive when heartless officials and some locals are against them. While that earlier film was shot in the comparatively exotic setting of the eponymous French port, TOIVON TUOLLA PUOLEN returns to Kaurismäki's familiar stomping grounds of downtown Helsinki.

    The film consists of two converging plot lines. In one, the aging salesman Wikström (Sakari Kuosmanen, a longtime member of Kaurismäki's acting stable) leaves his wife, wins a lot of money in a poker game, and decides to open a restaurant. In the other, the Syrian refugee Khaled (Sherwan Haji) arrives in Helsinki after fleeing war-torn Aleppo and wandering across half of Europe, but he is worried about his sister that he got separated with along the way. Wikström and Khaled eventually meet and become friends -- or the closest thing to friends that Kaurismäki's exaggeratedly cold and morose Finns can get to each other. Before that, however, the Wikström plot line serves to inject some humour, albeit of an extremely deadpan sort, into a film that, though Khaled, explores the depressing lives of refugees who are shuffled from one center to another and forced to wait for their cases to be processed.

    For three decades now, Kaurismäki has made all his films to a very distinctive template that virtually never varies. Its characters speak a minimum of dialogue to each other and show little expression on their faces. The sets are drab in colour and deliberately anachronistic, with gadgets, vehicles or clothes from the 1950s alongside computers and mobile phones from our time. At some point, a band will appear on stage playing oldies rock, blues, or Finnish tangos as the characters look on.

    TOIVON TUOLLA PUOLEN doesn't stray from that template either. Still, the script has enough fresh moments to it that it will feel worthwhile even to longtime Kaurismäki films who have sat through this template many times before. Some of the humorous bits are laugh-out-loud funny, but overall this does feel like a darker film than most of the director's work. It is ultimately a choked, restrained cry of rage at the way that refugees are treated, by a Nordic society that prides itself on fairness, equality and charity. While Kaurismäki is roughly on the left politically, several of his films have attacked the Finnish welfare state for its opaque bureaucracy and its reduction of human beings to mere papers in a government file. This film continues that critique by depicting the refugees, who come from many countries but manage to band together to lend each other help, as the sort of neighborly solidarity that Kaurismäki prefers to faceless bureaucracy.

    I personally wouldn't find this the best introduction to Kaurismäki. His earlier film MIES VAILLA MENNEISYYTTÄ ("The Man Without a Past") depicted with more meat on its bone a down-on-his-luck man lost among bureaucracy, while the über-idiosyncratic romantic comedy VAROJA PARATIISISSA ("Shadows in Paradise") is one of Kaurismäki's best achievements in deadpan humour. Still, TOIVON TUOLLA PUOLEN seems to tell a story universal enough to pull on everyone's heartstrings and is worth seeing.
    helpful•16
    5
    • crculver
    • Oct 9, 2017

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • February 3, 2017 (Finland)
    • Countries of origin
      • Finland
      • Germany
    • Official sites
      • Official Facebook (United Kingdom)
      • Official site (Germany)
    • Languages
      • Finnish
      • English
      • Arabic
      • Swedish
      • Japanese
    • Also known as
      • El otro lado de la esperanza
    • Filming locations
      • Helsinki, Finland(The city)
    • Production companies
      • Sputnik
      • Oy Bufo Ab
      • Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF)
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • €1,600,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $183,943
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $15,495
      • Dec 3, 2017
    • Gross worldwide
      • $4,282,973
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 40 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Dolby Digital
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

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