Review by Vinoo
Language : Finnish
Director : Aki Kaurismaki
‘Laitakaupungin Valot’, another wonderful film from the master who is simply the best at telling those stories so very simply. This is the story of Koistenin (Janne Hyytiainen), a lonely night watchman, working for a shopping mall who gets stuck in a devious scheme by a businessman, Lindholm (Ilkka Koivula). Lindholm, with a pretty woman, Mirja (Maria Jarvenhelmi), for bait, decides to make use of Koistenin’s gullibility to meet his ends. Sample this conversation from the film, when Mirja meets Koistenin for the first time at a Café and asks him for a date :
Mirja : Is this seat taken?
Koistenin : Why sit here when the Café is empty?
Mirja : Because you looked like you needed company.
Koistenin : So what next? Shall we get married?
The tone, and the deadpan expression, which is by now a Kaurismaki trademark, is simply hilarious. Koistenin wants to start a business of his own but nothing seems to go right. He is a loner and the only other person, besides the stray dog, he has any conversation whatsoever with is a woman, Aila (Maria Heiskanen), who runs a small snack stall. Lindholm uses Mirja to befriend Koistenin and with her help gets the secret code to the lock and steals a Jewellery outlet. Koistenin is arrested and then released for want of proof. Later Mirja comes back to his house and plants evidence to get him arrested. He sees this but doesn’t protest. He serves his prison sentence and comes out and sees Lindholm and Mirja in a restaurant where he is now working. Lindholm gets him thrown out of his job by informing the owner of Koistenin’s background. Koistenin wants to get even and tries to stab Lindholm but is beaten and almost left for dead. Aila finds him lying totally battered, with a dog for company, and asks him not to die to which he replies ‘I won’t die yet’.
Scenes are minimal and so are the expressions and dialogues. His characters speak little, smoke all the time, get battered and are all funny in a sad way. There is always the ‘life is not fair’ theme.
Kaurismaki seems to use his cast inter-changeably in all his films. Kati Outinen who was in the earlier films of the trilogy also makes a cameo appearance in this film. ‘Lights in the Dusk’ is the final film in what he calls his ‘Loser Trilogy’, the other two being ‘Drifting Clouds’ and ‘The Man without a past’, both wonderful, particularly the casting. ‘The Match Factory Girl’, ‘I hired a contract killer’, ‘Leningrad Cowboys’, ‘Those were the days’, ‘Calamari Union’, ‘Ariel’ are other movies of his that I have watched, and strongly recommend. Easily among the Best Directors of the world, surely on my list.
Also watched Santosh Sivan’s ‘Urumi’. Average fare like most of his directorial ventures. Some good performances and camera work though.
Useless trivia : ‘Laitakaupungin valot’ was Finland’s nominee for the 79th Academy Awards but Aki Kaurismaki decided to boycott the Awards and refused the nomination in protest against George Bush’s foreign policy. His ‘the Man without a past’ was also nominated in 2002 but he boycotted that too. I confer on him the Oscar and the Grammy and …
In Kerala to catch the election fever and for a screening of my film. Also hope to do some groundwork and recce for a possible film. Meanwhile, seeing if I qualify to play for a football team my dad played for once upon a time in a tourney that starts this week 🙂 Sharing a link sent to me by a good old friend. A must watch for all, not just football-lovers. In a country that has time, money and space for just one sport, we sure can find a way.
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