Modestly scaled and tonally perfect, “Fallen Leaves” opens in a fluorescent hell-on-earth and ends with a vision of something like paradise. A lot of the drinks are downed hurriedly and often furtively by a man, while elsewhere a woman listens to sad songs. A Finnish writer-director best known on the international festival circuit (“Fallen Leaves” won a major award at the 2023 Cannes), Kaurismaki makes movies — precise, austere, plaintive — that resist compartmentalization. Set in contemporary Helsinki, “Fallen Leaves” opens on the woman who listens to sad songs; it’s a habit that suggests she’s a familiar genre type — she isn’t. That’s pretty much what happens when a supermarket manager later fires Ansa for taking some expired food.

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Persons: Aki, Kaurismaki, she’s, Alma Poysti, Ansa, Kaurismaki doesn’t Locations: Finnish, Cannes, Helsinki, —, Ukraine