Mika Kaurismäki returned to directing after a years-long hiatus with a film that is actor-driven in the truest sense of the word. While the screenplay is credited to Kaurismäki and Petri Karra, the lead actors largely improvised their own dialogue and drove the film forward in other ways as well, leading it towards cathartic laughter and tears.
Kari Heiskanen plays a photographer in the process of killing himself when he receives an invite for a pint from an old friend. The friend is a policeman (Pertti Sveholm), whose wife has just given birth to a child possibly fathered by another man. Also wandering the hospital corridors is an actor (Timo Torikka), who has just received tragic news. The three men cannot find their way to their loved ones, but come to find each other.
Three Wise Men is set during Christmas, the saddest of holidays for the lonely: there is no room at the inn for our trio – mainly because all the bars are closed. The only place to open its doors is an empty karaoke bar, where the protagonists get drunk, meet a depressed woman and, for once, decide to be truthful. Although their interaction echoes with conflict, the actors mesh together in admirable harmony.
The film is dedicated to John Cassavetes, and carries the same trademark rawness and grit of the works of the Godfather of Indie. This resonates especially strongly in the Santa Claus karaoke performance scene.
Kaisu Tervonen