The Finnish actress talks her surprise Golden Globe nomination, shooting one-take scenes, and her “very professional” scene partner, also named Alma.
Photo: Mubi
In Fallen Leaves, Alma Pöysti has to do a lot with a little. Her character, a supermarket drudge named Ansa, wears an impassive gaze and tends not to say much. During Ansa’s bus rides to and from work, director Aki Kaurismäki trains his camera on Pöysti’s face, asking us to read between the lines of her subtle expressions. Holappa (Jussi Vatanen), the man who slowly, tentatively courts Ansa after encountering her at a Helsinki karaoke bar, says even less. They are lonesome souls, thrust together amid the deadening cadence of modern existence — if…
