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Contains scenes of mild violenceCelebrated Finnish director Aki Kaurism盲ki has built a reputation of showing us the worlds of loners, misfits and losers. In the rewarding Lights in the Dusk, it is Kostinen (Janne Hyyti盲inen), a lonely nightwatchman at a shopping centre, whose dreams and pretensions of a better life are picked apart by an almost absurdly uncaring world. Passive and isolated, Koistinen smokes, drinks, drifts and dreams his way to resigned damnation.
Everyone Koistinen encounters is an obstacle to his happiness, from the disapproval and casual digust of passers-by to the callous grifting of Mirja, a low-rent femme fatale. In cahoots with jewel thieves keen to set him up as the fall-guy in their latest heist, she repays his easy trust and willingness to impress with almost hilarious malice. Only Aila, the dogged and doggish woman from the fast food stand outside his house, seems to care, but the torch she carries is ignored or unnoticed.
It all sounds brutally miserable, but a spry comic flicker, and Koistinen's dim but undying hope keep things surprisingly light, while brilliantly efficient storytelling - where nothing is shown that cannot be inferred - gives the human tale almost all of the short 77 minutes to unfurl.
"BRILLIANTLY EFFICIENT STORYTELLING"
The sumptuous palette and the closed but beautifully composed frames evoke a strange nostalgia: part Edward Hopper, part 1970s furniture catalogue. Along with Kostinen's noirish suits, rock and roll hairstyle and misplaced code of honour, it helps create the sense of a man completely out of time and place, a loser, lost, but never knowing it.
Lights in the Dusk (Laitakaupungin Valot) is released in UK cinemas on Friday 6th April 2007.
