Laitakaupungin valot (2006) Reviews

• Kaurismäki's sympathies lie with the common people

  mcnally2006-12-26

  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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• losing it in style

  squelcho2006-11-09

  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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• A fitting last stop for the Finland trilogy

  ejs-802006-02-07

  "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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• the arid, bitter-sweet beauty of despair

  CountZero3132008-10-26

  Night watchman Koiskinen lives an alienated life. Ridiculed and shunned by his workmates, regarded as incompetent by his employers, he lives alone, drinks alone, and only manages to talk in any decent way with the woman who sell hot dogs in the fast food stand. His life changes when a mysterious blond takes a sudden and unexpected interest in him. As a Kaurismaki novice, I was struck by the spartan sets, strong primary colours, and the actors penchant for walking briskly into frames and then freezing, akin to amateur theatre in the village hall. Once you figure out it is all a send up, the film is fun and moves along quickly enough. The dry, pared down dialogue, lack of sentiment, and black humour are interspersed judiciously. There seems to be a record attempt for number of cigarettes smoked in a film going on. The Finnish attitude to alcohol makes Scotland seem like Utah. Throughout it all, Koiskinen infuriates with his passivity. His minor triumph at the end, finally making the right decision, is small, fleeting and perfect in this context. The film is both downbeat and uplifting. I don't recommend watching Kaurismaki films back-to-back, but as an antidote to an overdose of Transformers or Harry Potter, this works perfectly.

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• Great conclusion of the "losers" trilogy

  MaxBorg892006-10-11

  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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