Ilpo Hirvonen Lights in the Dusk finished a trilogy started by Drifting Clouds (1996) and The Man without a Past (2002). Whereas the first dealt with unemployment and the second with homelessness, the third is about loneliness which is actually a part of all of them or, to put it simply: all the films by Aki Kaurismäki are about loneliness. But in Lights in the Dusk this theme is at its most honest, ruthless and clearest. Alienation and the difficult relation to others always characterizes his heroes. His films are about the inevitable marginality of these kind of people who have no job and no home.Basically, this is the story: A lonely watchman in Helsinki becomes acquainted with a woman who then turns out to be a real femme fatale who works for a small Russian crime organization. The woman entices the man and succeeds in getting the security codes for a jewelry business in a shopping mall he guards. The criminals rob the place and vanish into thin air. The man gets caught but doesn't report the woman nor the organization. He gets sent to prison but is quickly released to probation. After a desperate attempt to revenge, he gets beaten up and ends up lying on the ground at the dock.Aki Kaurismäki is a true minimalist and one can clearly see the influence of Robert Bresson and Jean-Luc Godard in his work. His philosophy of acting that "there is no acting" has made him famous all over world. He is extremely talented in turning insignificant to meaningful which is, of course, the core of minimalism. He has been developing his style into more and more aesthetically severe, close to Bressonian aesthetics but his style has never been as self-conscious as it is in Lights in the Dusk: there is nothing insignificant in the 'mise-en-scene' which is absolutely precisely considered.In the 'mise-en-scene' of Lights in the Dusk the characters live under bright colors and brutal light which are antitheses for the contrasts of black-and-white cinema. The simplified palette (the red of the indoors and the blue of the outdoors) resembles Bresson and it places the characters in closed milieus: small apartments, narrow halls and offices, run-down taverns and the kitchen of the restaurant all of which are also part of film-noir. What is important is that all these milieus are characterized by blindness and stagnation. All the icons of the visual world of film-noir can be found there as can the ingredients of the story: dangerous women, desperate men and moral complexity.Kaurismäki has always told stories about "losers with high morality". About the Finnish agony, and he often focuses his expressionistic eye on one character who in Lights in the Dusk happens to be Koistinen, played by Janne Hyytiäinen. The title of the film comes from the classic City Lights and just as Chaplin's tramp so does the protagonist of Lights in the Dusk try to find a crack in the world from which he could crawl in. But just about everything slows him down. Both, his fellow men and the faceless social machinery crush him down over and over again. His work, freedom and dreams are constantly being taken away from him.In the world view of Kaurismäki an individual can't survive without getting corrupted and hurt. The film is full of milieus that are like diseases from a sick society which is controlled and organized by money -- and a society like this inevitably drives people in alienation. The protagonist of Lights in the Dusk has got a job and an apartment but still isn't part of the society, and one who isn't can't even be sure of one's own existence now days. He has buried himself in a shell of loneliness. From his fellow workmen he only gets derisive words, and he seems to be neglecting the only real interest towards him from the corner store vendor. His silence is actually a form of defense: he can imagine himself as a hero who corrects injustices.Loneliness is the only way how the protagonist can resist the society where nothing but money and power matter. In front of the police investigation he again answers with silence. He protects the woman who cheated him but isn't this act really done just because he still has got a hope of getting her back? His attempt to kill the gangster is just ridiculous. By doing this he just proves that he clearly doesn't understand the rules of the game. The consequences of his acts are actually not important. It doesn't matter anymore whether he succeeds or not. However, the protagonist can't keep doing this 'act of silence' for the rest of his life. Beaten up, half-dead by the dock he takes the helping hand of the corner store vendor. She resuscitates him from the dead. This final scene with enormous power bears a striking resemblance to Camus' The Stranger where the protagonist can finally see, in his death row. For the first time the man reacts with something else than silence and, therefore, his shell starts to collapse.Lights in the Dusk isn't a pessimistic film. Sure it's a tragicomedy with a desolate world view but its ending resembles Drifting Clouds with its optimism in misery. Aki Kaurismäki is a cheerful pessimist and this is definitely one of my favorites by him, although I am not the greatest fan of his. The noir-like atmosphere: the milieus, rainy streets, wet and moist surfaces, moral complexity and femme fatales make it an extraordinarily brilliant film in the midst of modern European art-house. If alienation, loneliness and marginality of an individual in today's society are the themes of Lights in the Dusk its thesis might just be this: to get up one must go down; and the only way to a new rise is going down to the gates of hell.

ikanboy I am not a fan of movies about people who live their lives in a pointless way, and when given the options to act sit like zombies and let the river of life float them downstream. People like this-our main character-are as interesting to me as those pieces of flotsam. I gather the Director is trying to say something deep about loneliness and isolation, but this movie is nihilistic garbage. What are we supposed to make of a man who, when given options to change his situation, simply sits and waits for the inevitable to happen? Whatever the movie is trying to say is lost in the aimless vapidity of the story, the long pointless scenes, the stilted dialog are all reminiscent of Robert Bresson's work, and he leaves me cold as well, as does Samuel Beckett.I'll let the artsy fartsy crowd giggle and moan and dissect this piece of crap.

harborrat28 "Lights in the Dusk" was an incredible experience visually. It was as if Kaurismaki stitched together a series of modernist masters of various genres--Hopper, Bauhaus, Mondrian, Brutalism. Every scene was carefully planned by a man with a painterly eye for color and form. The characters/actors were living versions of Georg Grosz caricatures. The femme fatale had one of the worst complexions I've ever seen powdered over on a leading lady; a metaphor, perhaps, for her soul.Unfortunately, the story did not have the holding power of the earlier "The Man Without A Past," one of my all-time favorite movies. The (anti) hero, a handsome loser, is just too wimpy. Ultimately he almost seems to deserve everything that happens to him, except for the enduring love of one good woman.I was intensely disappointed by this movie although I'm glad I experienced it.

johno-21 I saw this at the 2007 Palm Springs International Film Festival and it's a drama that's so over the top that it's essentially a comedy and a parody of French New Wave films of the late 50's and early 60's. This is written, directed and produced by veteran Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki and beautifully shot by veteran cinematographer Timo Salminen with a wonderful production design from Markku Pätilä. This is the story of a lonely and picked upon security guard who we only know by his last name of Koistinen. He's a nice enough guy who's not bad looking but kind of short and wears slick backed greasy hair. He has no friends or girlfriends and fails to notice that the equally mousy hot dog vendor Aila has a crush on him. Koistinen doesn't fit in with the others at work and has plans to start his own security business. One day he meets the beautiful Mirja who befriends him with the premise of a possible unlikely relationship but she is the moll of a gangster named Lindholm and is only using Koistinen. All the characters play it extremely straight with very little emotion even when angered and never smile. I've never seen a film with so much smoking of cigarettes in it. Ashtrays are filled to the top and smoking is in virtually every scene. There are subtle comedic scenes throughout and I would probably need to see this a second time to catch ones I missed like when Mirja is vacuuming Lindholm's apartment. This is not a great film but it's different enough to be good and even though I only give it a 6.5 out of 10 I wouldn't mind seeing it again. This may even have the possibility of being a personal cult favorite of mine in years to come and my rating could go up.