Lights in the Dusk (2006)

Redundant and unnecessary.

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Good movie but grossly overrated

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

LAITAKAUPUNGIN VALOT by Aki Kaurismaki, "Lights in the Dusk", 2006. Viewed at the 2007 Rouen Nordic Film Festival where, if Chantal Ackerman's spare study of nothingness was "experimental" the word which applies to Aki Kaurismaki's "Lights in the Dark" (Finnish title) (LAITAKAUPUNGIN VALOT) is "Minimalist" -- to the MAX! Kaurismaki has always been known for showing no more than what is absolutely necessary to make a story point in his spare but compassionate studies of Finnish losers in Helsinki, but in this film he distills it down to the very nittiest-of-grit. "Lights in the Dudk" (or Shadows in the Slums) tells the story of the misadventures of a handsome but feckless security guard and his ill-fated romance with the beautiful moll of a sinister local gangster. The story line is so compressed it's almost hard to follow what exactly is going on, however, when our hero dies at the end clutching the hand of the exotic femme fatale who brought about his demise, we realize that we have actually been through a lot more than the 78 minutes which just went by on screen. This is the kind of picture where, if you blink, you've missed a whole important plot point, but it's also an exceptional treat for those who have followed Aki's career over the years -- like a special desert at the end of a long feast. Another teasingly minimalist touch is the appearance of Kaurismaki's usual leading lady, Katti Outinen, in a 30 second cameo as -- what else? -- a supermarket checkout cashier. Don't blink or you'll miss her too. This latest offering from Kaurismaki may not be for every taste, but it is certainly something special and would be a perfect swan song were the taciturn Finn to step out of the picture tomorrow.

Lights in the Dusk was beautifully disturbing, and may speak best to those with an appreciation for the artistic layers of film creation, and variations on film noir. This film will return to you the morning after with haunting images of the inexpressive guard, and his fragility as a handsome dreamer whose sense of conquest and hope continues to fade away. The film is also a great object lesson in the seductive capacities of the blonde femme fatale. Their repeated encounters, purposefully contrived by her to satisfy her employer, reels our naive guard into a series of misadventures. As the leading man passively faces humiliation, brutality, rejection, social alienation, imprisonment, job loss, and an unending series of dreams that dissolve, one can sympathize when he is moved to take a vengeful action against those whose power have thwarted him repeatedly and successfully. Predictably, even this act of courage is blocked, and again, he succumbs to defeat. The cinematography is brilliant in reflecting the gloom of the leading man with well composed bleak settings and landscapes, including a colorless food grill whose proprietor is one of the few characters to evidence compassion. Cinematographer Tuomi gives the fragile leading man an ambient mirror across settings with Helsinki serving to contrast comfort and despair. It is the wishful fascinations of the leading man, and his willingness to sacrifice that cost him deeply. The film gets right under your skin as you dare to watch innocence burn.

Lights in the Dusk is an odd little animal, a film that gives you archetypes of a genre and delivers a story it insists you find interesting before branching off into something else and then ending in a manner that, at least I, found abrupt. The title of the film is Laitakaupungin valot, Finnish for what I can only presume to be 'Lights in the Dusk'. The title suggests hope, it suggests something light or positive; something to map onto amidst the ever-growing darkness or 'dusk' around you as the light fades and the black creeps in. Given the final shot of the film, Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki seems to stay true to his word and the film's title but I felt short changed; as if there was something else that could've developed once the film had ended to do with a psychological study of absolute no hope, rather than giving us what we get (which is genre film-making) and then finishing on an ambiguous note to do with us asking 'what happens next'? It's a strange feeling when you come away wanting to know what happens next in a film but it's an even stranger one when you feel what might've happened next could have been better than what you were given. All sorts of questions open up, mostly to do with love and relations and one's true feelings for the everyday person you feel like you know but really don't and whether or not the immediate resolution would have been enough for the film's hapless protagonist or whether he'd been pushed so far over the edge that revenge now seemed obligatory to him.But hey, maybe that's the point or maybe Kaurismäki will revisit the cut off point in the future. The film as a whole is indeed an odd beast but an intriguing one, peeling off for long passages of scenes without dialogue before advancing the story at a relatively speedy pace, something that echoes life as a whole perhaps. The film is not shy of changing its pace as it places its noir infused, hapless protagonist at a dinner table waiting for his date as the minutes tick by. The next minute, he's showing her around where he works and this-is-this-and-that-is-that and the scene has finished.The hapless lead is Koistinen (Hyytiäinen), a security guard at a Helsinki jewellers doing the night rounds more often than not. He meets Mirja (Järvenhelmi); the smoking, mysterious, alluring and relatively quiet femme fatale of the genre piece who works for some crooks that have bigger fish to fry, notably the jewels at Koistinen's work, and he is the way in. The film's idea looks good on paper, in fact it looks and sounds like a cracking yarn with the sort of sneaky approach behind it revolving around it being a 'hiest' picture not entirely about the heist. Ever think about when you last watched a really iffy heist film like '3000 Miles to Graceland' and you see any number of security guards or police officers getting shot or taking some other flack during the robbery? Well Lights in the Dusk is the sort of film that follows those wounded peace keepers (either physically, psychologically or whether they're 'in' on it or not) and develops them in the aftermath rather than the thieves.The film's overall tone reminded me of another Scandinavian film of recent times, entitled 'The Bothersome Man' in its brooding and slow build up, a very quiet film; ominous at times as these strange places or people just exist – they do nothing much more but exist right there, doing and saying and expressing as little as possible. The editing and delivery in both films is very drab and downbeat but purposely so and thus gives off an odd atmosphere of the mysterious and uncertain. Koistinen and Mirja are not two of the most charismatic lead characters in a film ever but their relationship is never even 'so' in the first place so whatever communication or fondness there is will always be a result of Mirja's larger goal which is related to her employers larger goal.To say whether the heist happens and what happens next feels like a crude spoiler. Just to say, the study of loneliness and the parallels between the alienation at work twinned with the feeling of being left out resonates as to where Koistinen ends up at various intervals, following his 'cutting off of contact' with said female interest. I just felt sorry for the guy; someone who just keeps getting knocked down and, I feel, builds up such venom of which we never get to see the consequence of, something that I've already said might make for an interesting study, immediately post-ending of this picture. This is a man's 'prior tragedy' event in any Hollywood film you like stretched to 80 odd minutes and for pulling that off you have to commend the director. In a sense, anyone that watches this are playing a 'Koistinen' role themselves with the director as the seducer, leading you down a route of the noir and of the 'hesit' genre before branching off to look at the results of said event and then ending on a distorting note leaving you wanting more. Regardless, I look forward to seeing some of Kaurismäki's other work in the future.

This film is an excellent comment on the downward spiral of an individual resulting from a very unequal society with a faulty / oblivious criminal justice system that punishes the innocent, band-aids the symptoms of social ills, but does not address root causes, and the long term social effects of imprisonment. The little guy's life is ruined while the real criminals get away with anything - just like in the real world! Hard work gets you nowhere! Neither does loyalty! It presents in a wonderfully bittersweet way the existential angst of a life at the bottom, just scraping by, against the coldness and apathy of a kind of extreme-Darwinian world where life is brutish and short. Ultimately, a tiny crack of light opens at the end, through humans simply caring for each other. But, like in the real world, you might die before anything good happens. A very stylized film, filmed almost like a comic book, impeccably detailed, spare, and melancholy but beautiful.