Lights in the Dusk is not among Aki Kaurismaki's very best films, but is a good addition to his oeuvre. The movie is about Koistinen, a thirty-something security guard who is portrayed as the definition of a loser. He falls quickly for a blonde from the mob, even though he almost certainly knows from the start that this is a setup. The blonde gets his security codes, so the gangsters she is associated with can steal a jewelry at the department stores he guards. The running gag of the movie is that Koistinen is so lonely and hungry for personal companionship that the blonde has almost nothing to do to get his confidence: no sex, no kisses, and after he is caught, he refuses to name her to the police. Meanwhile, he rejects the only woman in the world that seems to care for him: a plain, if kind, hot dog vendor. The movie chronicles the sad fall of this man, even though at the very end a ray of hope (improbably) emerges. The problem with the movie is that Kaurismaki's has become too mannerist a filmmaker: the film is full of his usual quirks; for example, Koistinen and the two women he is involved with never made eye contact, as the actors are told to made a blank stare when they talk to each other. As usual in Kaurismaki's films, the music is great: the movie starts and ends with two tangos by the great Carlos Gardel: Volver and El Dia Que me Quieras. In between, there are a number of good Finnish tangos and classic opera songs. Kaurismaki regular Kati Outinen appears in a cameo as a supermarket vendor (if I'm not mistaken, that was the role she played in her first Kaurismaki movie: Shadows in Paradise).
Review of Lights in the Dusk
