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25 out of 30 people found the following comment useful :-
Kaurismäki's sympathies lie with the common people, 26 joulukuu 2006

Author: James McNally from Toronto, Canada

I saw this film at the Toronto International Film Festival. This is the third film in Kaurismäki's "Helsinki Trilogy" (the others are Drifting Clouds (1996) and The Man Without a Past (2002)) While I haven't seen the first, this film shares many thematic and formal elements with the second film, and I enjoyed it just as much.

Koistinen is a lonely security guard who is ignored by his co-workers; that is, when he's not being teased by them. His life is soon turned upside down by a femme fatale, with heartbreaking results. Despite the grim-sounding plot, the film is full of the director's trademark deadpan humour. And I'm in awe of how he can make the film just radiate love despite the mannered acting and awkward staging. Perhaps it has to do with the warmth of the lighting and the colour palette, as well as the use of nostalgic music and art direction. Whatever it is, from the first frame, you know the director loves this sad sack and wants us to love him too.

The films of the Helsinki Trilogy all deal with people on the margins, and it's clear that Kaurismäki's sympathies lie with the common people and not with those whose success or power has dehumanized them. He is a true humanist, and his "heroes" all bear their sufferings stoically; in fact, they quite literally personify a "never-say-die" attitude, and that makes them admirable. Their hangdog expressions may make us pity them, but it's their core of inner strength that makes us love them.

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22 out of 30 people found the following comment useful :-
A fitting last stop for the Finland trilogy, 7 helmikuu 2006

Author: ejs-80 from Finland

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

"Laitakaupungin valot" is the last episode for the Aki Kaurismäki's Finland trilogy whose previous items were "Drifting Clouds" and "The Man Without a Past".

The main character of the latest installment is a lonely and badly treated night guard Koistinen who in many ways is the male version of Iris from "The Match Factory Girl". Having seen both of these films it is impossible to avoid certain comparisons, and it can be said that in some ways you can invent more tragic stories for a female character than a male one because of her possibility to become a mother. However, you can also certainly absorb yourself into the story of the male main character of "Laitakaupungin valot" and feel empathy for him.

In this movie Kati Outinen does a flash-like cameo appearance as the clerk of a Cassa shop, and the performers of the bigger parts are quite well accustomed to the Kaurismäki's style of film-making. Maria Järvenhelmi does a quality job but is not able to drain that last drop from her role that differentiates it from the classic Eve of "All About Eve". On the other hand, this may partly advance the realism of the movie. Janne Hyytiäinen, who plays the main part, is also very believable in his role, although I do not consider him to be quite as magnificent "silent film actor" as Kati Outinen was in previous parts of the trilogy.

The music of "Laitakaupungin valot" deserves a special mention, since with it the aesthetic style of Kaurismäki really flowers. Skillfully have been also selected those moments where the silence is the loudest instrument. What comes to the other content, there is a plenty of Kaurismäki's trade-mark dry humor at the beginning of the movie, especially at the coffee shop scene, but when the film goes on its comedic currents almost totally vanish and the dramatic values take over. Another notable feature of this work is its exceptional amount of smoking (even for Kaurismäki), which is possibly caused by the director's own agenda of opposing the ban of smoking in restaurants.

In any case, "Laitakaupungin valot" is a quality work, and it is assured that the friends of Aki Kaurismäki won't be disappointed in seeing it.

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14 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
Great conclusion of the "losers" trilogy, 11 lokakuu 2006

Author: Max_cinefilo89 from Italy

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

After Drifting Clouds (1996) and the Oscar-nominated The Man Without a Past (2002), Aki Kaurismäki ends his "losers" trilogy with what appears to be his most cynical film to date.

Lights in the Dusk (the Finnish title, Laitakaupungin valot, is inspired by Chaplin's City Lights) is a quite unusual Kaurismäki movie, mostly because of the absence of his regular acting ensemble (the exception being Kati Outinen in a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo, reminiscent of Shadows in Paradise). In fact, the leading thespian is the rather unknown Janne Hyytiäinen, who had a minor role in The Man Without a Past. He plays Koistinen, a lonely, naive night watchman with no social life. The only "real" relationship he has is his friendship with the female owner of a hot dog stand, but then again it's all limited to small talk about how boring his life is. Imagine his surprise, then, when one night a woman decides to keep him company in a cafè (when told she sat next to him because he looked lonely, the night watchman's priceless answer is "And now what? We're getting married?"). Overenthusiastic, Koistinen asks this lady out and brags about his "luck" with the hot dog woman. If only he knew, poor fella: his "girlfriend" is actually connected with the Russian underworld's Helsinki branch, and the only reason she's dating the unlucky fool is to help her superiors frame him for a crime. You can imagine how things go from this point on.

Lights in the Dusk is all we could expect from Kaurismäki, but fails to reach the levels of previous masterpieces for two reasons: first of all, the whole thing about a guy being sent to jail for a crime he didn't commit sounds all too familiar (Ariel, anyone?). In addition, there are moments where the director's pessimism gets too frustrating for the audience, as he seems to have no intention of making his antihero's situation a little more bearable.

That's why we're caught completely off guard when he finally offers redemption and hope, all made more effective by the extremely bold decision to save it for the very last shot. His intriguing analysis of solitude, expressed through many beautiful symbols (the abandoned dog above all), climaxes into one stunning, undeniably powerful image, the best ending the Finnish master has ever come up with. For that shot alone, Kaurismäki deserves universal plaudits.

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17 out of 24 people found the following comment useful :-
losing it in style, 9 marraskuu 2006

Author: squelcho

I saw this film as part of the London Film Festival and would recommend it simply on the basis that it held my interest from start to finish after a very long day at work. The only other movies I saw which managed this feat were Taxidermia and Big Bang Love, both extraordinary films in their own individualistic ways.

Kaurismaki inspires a certain hangdog cynical joi de vivre and leaves his audience to extract the humour based on their own mistakes/prejudices. So is it a great film? Not particularly, but it's a very clever piece that drags you into a vortex of depression and loneliness, and almost forgets to return to the surface. The acting is relentlessly downbeat, the script a tour de force of clumsy unspoken angst, and the whole is a beautifully tongue-in-cheek lesson in the art of 21st century minimalist expressionism. Personally, I find Kaurismaki's comedy blooming in the banal stupidity which informs the painful learning process of his clumsy but lovable characters. No assumptions of sophistication, only aspiration to a meagre level of happiness. Just like 90% of the world's population. Compassionate humanism and world-weary cynicism are constant bedfellows in the Kaurismaki canon. Who would want it any other way? Cigarette?

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11 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
Kaurismaki goes Kafka and fluffs the laugh cues., 15 tammikuu 2007

Author: peter-byrne from Italy

Aki Kaurismaki has an instinctive knack of laying down a story. He also presents the interest of being on the margins of life in a marginal country. Think of "Hamlet Goes Business". But in "Lights in the Dusk", Kaurismaki goes Kafka. He leans toward the fable, a genre hard to make into a decent movie. This one follows an honest loser to disaster. The character only manages to crawl out of the pit at the last minute by finally accepting partnership with another, more cautious loser. Visually splendid the film shows us Helsinki in all its modern, hard-edged, hostility, and together with the acting has a flawless unity of style. A.K.'s quirky humor is much less in evidence than usual though you might call a joke the fact that the loser's life in jail is roughly like his existence before he goes inside and after he comes out. Indeed the only time we see him socially at ease and smiling is in the prison yard when spring comes to Helsinki.

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15 out of 23 people found the following comment useful :-
Karuismäki rounds out his Loser Trilogy, 30 marraskuu 2006

Author: Chris Knipp from Berkeley, California

At the center of this film is a man named Koiskinen (Janne Hyytiainen). He is an isolated security guard and his story is one of cruel deception and eventual, utter downfall.

Though Koiskinen's slicked-back hairstyle wouldn't seem fashionable outside of a Forties gangster film, he's really not a bad-looking guy; he just isn't a leading man. But Koiskinen's outcast status is a given we can't question. He has a slightly hangdog quality. He has dreams of starting his own company, but this seems a laughable illusion; he is scorned even by his coworkers. He has no life. The uniform, cigarettes, the lockers, the cold nightly guard duty, a dreary flat. These are the boundaries of his existence.

In fact what's curiously enchanting about Kaurismäki: the analytical certainty of his downbeat riffs.

Quite inexplicably, Mirja (Maria Jarvenhelmi), a well-dressed, striking, enigmatic woman, almost albino in her blondness, picks Koiskinen up in a bar and begins dating him. How can he resist? Her motives, however, are none too good. In fact they are of the worst kind. She is the agent of a nefarious higher power. You might not think Finland had gangsters but this is Helsinki, and the wide shots of the dark city at night are luminous and powerful, underlined by haunting tango music -- not an arbitrary but an indigenous choice, because after Argentina, Finland is the first capital of the tango. The movie is drenched in romantic music -- Puccini, Manon Lescaut, Gardel's "Volver," and Finnish tangos. There is a sweep about it, but the sweep is ominous.

Koiskinen has no part of the city's power, except as its victim. He exists to be exploited -- and with rigor. It's sad, because no matter how bad things get, he goes on dreaming. But his life is a dream, and he is unaware of what's happening to him. Out of deference, Finns don't like to look you in the eye when they speak. Aila (Maria Heiskanen), the woman who cares about Koiskinen, who runs a refreshment stand in a vacant lot, he has little use for.

Kaurismäki's sequences of scenes are as bold and assured as they are ironic. This is a pessimistic, but curiously vibrant view of life. There was never a more willing dupe than Koiskinen. This film has the squirming life of a pool full of sharks devouring carp.

Laitakaupungin Valot, called Les lumières du faubourg or "suburban lights" in its French release and Lights in the Dusk in Canada, is in fact a coolly ironic reference to Charlie Chaplin's City Lights. It is a devastating finale to Kaurismäki's "Loser Trilogy," which began with Drifting Clouds and continued with A Man without a Past. This may be the best of the three. Its mood of twilight doom is unforgettable.

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12 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
downward spiral, 25 tammikuu 2007

Author: mykxxxxxxx from United States

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.

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7 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Kaurismaki is a god of cinema, 8 helmikuu 2008

Author: slake09 from Silver Lake, Ohio, USA

Lights in the Dusk is another in the series of movies about Finnish life that contain the same elements; deadpan dialog, subtle humor, stubborn protagonists, semi-happy endings. If you're into this style of film, you'll really like it. However, it's an acquired taste, not for everyone.

Our anti-hero is a security guard, caught up in a criminal plot, ultimately taken advantage of by a beautiful femme fatale but redeemed by the love of a good woman. That sounds like a simple plot, but as seen in the movie it's anything but simple.

I've seen references to a trilogy, mentioning this film along with Man Without A Past and Drifting Clouds. That seems to ignore Match Factory Girl, which fits right in with the rest. I've seen most of Kaurismaki's work and liked everything, I really groove to the retro style, the deadpan acting, the plots which seem simple but are in fact very complicated.

If you like Kaurismaki, or are in the mood for something different, check it out. At the very least you'll remember it and think about it.

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7 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Quick review from the Toronto International Film Festival, 8 syyskuu 2006

Author: Jay Kerr from Toronto, Canada

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I saw this film earlier today at the Toronto International Film Festival. Here is a quick review.

Lights in the Dusk is the third film in a trilogy directed by Aki Kaurismäki. A few weeks ago I rented the second film in this trilogy, The Man Without A Past—a charming film about an outcast that deals with loneliness, love and his place in the world.

Lights in the Dusk also focuses on an outcast—a lonely security guard who works nights in Helsinki. Koistinen doesn't have any friends or family that we know of. He isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer and will do anything for a woman that shows any interest in him.

Koistinen's character is naive and innocent. He's duped by a beautiful blonde and set up for robbery he didn't commit. His life is a miserable series of injustices.

As depressing as all of this sounds, Kaurismäki has crafted a touching film that I enjoyed thoroughly. It has a style that is unique to Kaurismäki through the music, the quirky characters and the timelessness of the sets. Great film.

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20 out of 36 people found the following comment useful :-
Same Stuff Different Day, 11 syyskuu 2006

Author: Mike White from Riverview, MI

When you find a formula that works, you often stick to it even to the point of spinning your wheels until you become something of either an establishment or a cliché. Director Aki Kaurismaki may do well to bare this in mind before embarking on his next languid look at sad-faced Finns moving in somnambulistic circles through the streets of Helsinki.

Perhaps considering JUHA and MAN WITHOUT A PAST too fast-paced, Kaurismaki slows down the action in LIGHTS IN THE DARK to a snail's pace.

Despite making me wonder if Kaurismaki is playing it safe by recycling the same ideas, his films are often like comfort food and it would take a lot to make me sick of macaroni and cheese. Rather than keeping on the safe ground, Kaurismaki could follow in the footsteps of his friend and fellow minimalist auteur Jim Jarmusch and make Finnish equivalents of GHOST DOG or DEAD MAN. On second thought, keep with what you're doing, Aki.

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