Lights in the Dusk (Laitakaupungin valot) (2006)

68% of critics liked it
(40 reviews)
69% of users liked it
(4,284 ratings)

A lonely night watchman finds love but comes to regret it in this offbeat comedy from Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki. Koistinen (Janne Hyytiainen) works as a security guard at a shopping mall in Helsinki, where he keeps an eye on the place after hours. Koistinen is a quiet nebbish who doesn't have… More A lonely night watchman finds love but comes to regret it in this offbeat comedy from Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki. Koistinen (Janne Hyytiainen) works as a security guard at a shopping mall in Helsinki, where he keeps an eye on the place after hours. Koistinen is a quiet nebbish who doesn't have much luck with women, and the closest thing he has to a girlfriend is Aila (Maria Heiskanen), a woman who runs a sausage cart Koistinen frequents after work, though he doesn't realize she carries a torch for him. Koistinen is killing time in a shabby café when he meets Mirja (Maria Jarvenhelmi), a beautiful blonde who appears to be interested in him. Koistinen is immediately smitten and is willing to marry her even before they have their first date, but what he doesn't know is Mirja's interest in him is not sincere -- she's working with Lindholm (Ilkka Koivula), a career criminal who has hired her to get some security codes from Koistinen so they can stage a heist at the mall where he works. However, even after Koiskinen is betrayed by Mirja and becomes the leading suspect in the robbery, he still loves her and can't bring himself to tell the police what he's learned about her. Laitakaupungin Valot (aka Lights In The Dusk) received its world premiere at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 1 hr. 18 min.
Directed By: Aki Kaurismäki
Written By: Aki Kaurismäki
Genres: Art House & International, Drama

In Theaters: Jun 13, 2007 Wide
On DVD: Oct 16, 2007
Studio: Strand Releasing

Critic Reviews

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader
Kaurismaki creates some beautiful frames, carefully composing his affectless characters against the rooms' colors, but there's something wrong with your story when people are upstaged by the decor.
Wesley Morris, Boston Globe
It's a deceptively satisfying, almost magical achievement, like being stranded in a desert yet never going thirsty.
Bill Stamets, Chicago Sun-Times
The director's existential sarcasm is muted here.
Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times
The distance Kaurismki creates belies his deeply humanistic streak. He engages characters in the direst of situations not to see them suffer but to search for hope.
Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com
So stylized and slow-moving (even at a spare 75 minutes) that you may have trouble adapting to its hypnotic rhythms -- but if you can, there are sumptuous visual rewards to be found, plus the faintest emotional uptick right at the end.
Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
There's great music, an excellent dog, and that indescribable Kaurismäki tension between misery and a cosmic joke.
Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com
Though it's the weakest of the three panels that form Kaurismaki's trilogy, which began with Drifting Clouds in 1996, it's still worth seeing.
Enrique Buchichio, Uruguay Total
Un relato crudo, probablemente desconcertante y extrañamente tragicómico, sólo para seguidores incondicionales del director, que repite su estilo sin sorpresas.
Prairie Miller, Long Island Press
Another in a series of Kaurismaki's deeply touching portraits of ordinary people, full of gentle and mournfully poetic subtle narrative rhythms.
Anton Bitel, Eye for Film
in interview, Kaurismaki wields an even more minimalist variant on the kind of deadpan humour for which his films are so famous.
Tim Brayton, Antagony & Ecstasy
A wholly satisfying comic-existential bit of fluff.
Shawn Levy, Oregonian
It's exactly the picture he wanted to make; that's for sure. But in this case that's not quite enough.
Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle
Kaurismäki's spare style and economical storytelling are well-suited to this particular story about loneliness, as the director never muddies the frame with sentimental dross or lugubrious inclinations.
Tom Keogh, Seattle Times
Kaurismäki is self-consciously tapping into the raw pathos of an earlier time in cinema (the pain and loss that often accompanied Charles Chaplin's Little Tramp, for example). The idea works, though it is finally wearing.
Sean Axmaker, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Aki Kaurismaki's gloomy take on film noir... is pure Kaurismaki, done in the director's inimitable deadpan and surreally dispassionate style and grim sensibility.
Andy Klein, Los Angeles CityBeat
There is an admirable rigor here and even a brief touch of sunshine, but almost none of the humor that marks [Kaurismaki's] best work.
Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News
So dry it's parched, this study of a passive loser whose life just keeps getting worse is basically a series of noir cliches clothed in arthouse anomie.
Armond White, New York Press
The downbeat tone of Lights in the Dusk just escapes offense and self-parody due to Kaurismäki's careful, subtle craftsmanship.
Scott Tobias, AV Club
Lights In The Dusk plays out in the expected Kaurismäki style, with flavorful musical interludes, great affection for the city's outcasts, and lots of bleakness chased by the faintest sliver of hope.

Read all 19 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Anthony L

Regret, loneliness, stubbornness..it's a wonder we all carry on. It's a wonder that Aki Kaurismäki caries on to be honest, as after watching the film I watched an interview with him that was a DVD extra and it sounds like every film he makes now is a real effort and… More
Regret, loneliness, stubbornness..it's a wonder we all carry on. It's a wonder that Aki Kaurismäki caries on to be honest, as after watching the film I watched an interview with him that was a DVD extra and it sounds like every film he makes now is a real effort and he's totally lost his passion. Unfortunately it does show somewhat in Lights in the Dusk. Don't get me wrong though, it's a good film and easily one of his best looking films; never has a director made the ordinary look so colourful. This just isn't him at his best and I can only await Le Havre with nervous anticipation.
Stefanie C

An ironic, existential portrait of loneliness. From the start, Koistinen is painfully out of sync with his environment and ostracized by almost every person he encounters. The tight, lingering frame compositions, remarkably open and suggestive, emphasize this discordant, askew… More
An ironic, existential portrait of loneliness. From the start, Koistinen is painfully out of sync with his environment and ostracized by almost every person he encounters. The tight, lingering frame compositions, remarkably open and suggestive, emphasize this discordant, askew vision. Amidst this bleakness, hope triumphs in the final, life-affirming shot. A positive end to Kaurismaki's Loser Trilogy.
Ross C

A night-watchman with a simple, lonely life is framed by mobsters.
Walter M

[font=Century Gothic]Written and directed by Aki Kaurismaki in a deadpan style, "Lights in the Dusk" is about lonely Koistinen(Janne Hyytiainen), who has worked as a security guard for the past three years. Despite having neither experience or money, he wants to open his… More
[font=Century Gothic]Written and directed by Aki Kaurismaki in a deadpan style, "Lights in the Dusk" is about lonely Koistinen(Janne Hyytiainen), who has worked as a security guard for the past three years. Despite having neither experience or money, he wants to open his own security firm. One day, into his life walks blonde Mirja(Maria Jarvenhelmi) and they go out on a date. He falls for her but has no idea of her ulterior motive. Nor does he question the possibility that she is quite frankly out of his league.[/font] [font=Century Gothic][/font] [font=Century Gothic]Considering "Lights in the Dusk" is centered around a heist, it should come as no surprise that none of the characters see working for a living as anything remotely honorable. Mirja is employed by Lindholm(Ilkka Koivula), a gangster, who looks down his nose at Koistenen while using him to get the security codes for a shopping mall that he regularly patrols. Mirja is torn but fears having to actually work in a regular job too much to stop.[/font]