Ariel is the second film in a trilogy of films depicting Finland 1986-1989 that began with Shadows in Paradise (1986), and was completed with The Match Factory Girl (1989). It is the story of a young man, Kasurinen, who arrives in an inhospitable southern town after the Lappland mine, where he and his father work, shuts down. Left with the car his father left him - a snow white Cadillac convertible - and a radio, he drifts into a job at the docks and a relationship with Irmeli and her son.

But, as in many Kaurismäki films, fate intervenes when Kasurinen becomes a hapless pawn in the judicial system. Although the journey has stopped, Kaurismäki maintains the stripped-down road movie conventions, punctuating the gloomy mood with music, Finnish pop and even a tango.

Shot in black and white (Kaurismäki's films alternate between what he terms "serious realistic colour films" and black and white movies in an underground style), the film is infected with a dark, satiric yet beguiling tone, offering a warm insight into the predicament of people living at the margins of society. At the film's premiere, Kaurismäki said he was dedicating the film to "the memory of Finnish reality".
- (PKa)