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.
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.