<PERSON>
Having seen the previous Proletariat trilogy films, I was prepared for something lightly droll. The setup preps us for that. The eponymous girl has a low-life existence, like other '80s <PERSON> characters. She's looking for love. She strikes out repeatedly, matchbook pun intended.
Things keep going lower for her.
And of course we are in the Finnish version of "Modern Times." The girl might as well be the <PERSON>, who will always find sentimental love in odd places.
Instead, <PERSON> goes a lot darker. Maintaining his vision that modern Finland is a bleak industrial hellscape, the girl is involved in nothing but transactions. Most of those are condescending. The few words spoken to her -- the few words spoken in the movie -- are insults. Isn't "Whore!" one of the first words of the movie? And it's spoken by her father, whom she's supporting, because she bought a pink dress to attract a guy.
I think this is what <PERSON> would be like he had a more entertaining, sicker sense of humor. The repeated transactions in this movie, highlighted by hands putting Finnish cash on hands or on tables, operate as this society's version of "friendship." In terms of true friends, the girl has none. When she tells her co-worker that she's pregnant, the co-worker just gets up and walks away. Mom and dad hate her. 80
Brother seems indifferent. And then there's the men she would date.
That gets me to thinking: if the Tramp were a woman, what would his story have been like?
Maintained here in this third proletariatian movie is that the Finland within these films has no culture. Well, it has dopey imitative culture: specifically, derivative American music galore. The girl walks around in nothing but soulless places. If only she wandered around that garden more at the beginning of the film ... but anyway, I think the matchbooks are the imitative symbol. The machines produce endless numbers of matches. Great, for what? For the girl, it means cash, that turns into her dad's rent, beers at the bar, and absolutely nothing more.
As an fyi, when I talk about horror movies not scaring me in general, when we get to something like "The Matchbook Factory Girl," we have a kind of horror movie in development. In other hands, that's exactly what this material has been: hyped emotionally wrought scenes that expose the inner anguish of the main character, showcasing why she does what she does. <PERSON> finds the opposite style just as effective for the same purpose. In my order of preferences, his style is more effective for this material. Because most of us, I think, quietly suffer like the girl. 80