The penultimate film in the current season of LRB Screen, which explores visions of London created by non-British filmmakers, is the only feature made in the UK by the celebrated, singular Finnish writer/director, Aki Kaurismäki. I Hired a Contract Killer is a brilliantly downbeat, witty and moving comedy of errors, which also serves as a vivid document of the city at a moment of transition, in the aftermath of Margaret Thatcher’s Big Bang.
Henri Boulanger (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a lonely French man in a dead-end office job with the London waterworks, is made redundant with immediate effect, due to privatisation. Having nothing left to live for, he repeatedly fails to kill himself. Hearing by chance about contract killers, he arranges for a contract to be taken out on himself. However, when he meets flower seller Margaret (Margi Clark), he changes his mind, which is when his real problems start...
Shot in atmospheric and unfamiliar locations (many now demolished) across Docklands and the East End, and featuring a musical cameo by the late Joe Strummer, I Hired a Contract Killer convincingly fuses the distinctive world-making of its director with a recognisably ‘English’ mood and tone. Despite premiering at the Venice Film Festival, it is one of Kaurismäki’s least well-known titles, and the only one not to appear in his collected Blu-Ray box-set. This is a rare opportunity to see it on the big screen.
Introducing I Hired a Contract Killer and discussing it afterwards with regular host Gareth Evans, will be the architectural and cultural historian (and LRB regular), Owen Hatherley.
With thanks to the Finnish Film Foundation, The Match Factory and Sputnik Oy, especially Anni Asikainen, Valentina Bronzini and Haije Tulokas.
