”The Match Factory Girl” is an astonishingly stylish work. It proves that simplicity is best, both morally and stylistically. The narrative style is severely ascetic. Every unnecessary element has been scrapped, as well as all unnecessary dialogue. Kaurismäki’s narrational ellipses are so crystallised that, besides not showing the normal intermediate stages in the development of the story, he can refrain from showing the end results (Mikko Piela, 1989)