Diagonaldi Very well executed

Redwarmin This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Guy Plot: A lonely security guard is manipulated by a femme fatale working for a gang of jewel thievesThis is a film that is so bleak that it actually becomes very funny, in a slightly hysterical sort of way. It was recently broadcast in the UK at 2am, which must have made for a surreal viewing experience. The plot is minimal, the characterisation light, and the script short. Much of the film is taken up with long silences (in which the characters smoke), songs being played in full, and lengthy shots (check out the one of a card game in the gangster's den, where the femme fatale vacuums the carpet). The protagonist never actually does anything, preferring to simply let events wash over him, and for a thriller there are no thrills. Nor is there any action, or humour, or human warmth (the final shot excepted). Nonetheless, the film is gripping in a curious way, its bleakness and underdog hero proving strangely compulsive viewing.

Roland E. Zwick Clocking in at a pithy one-hour-and-fourteen minutes, "Lights in the Dusk" is an existentialist Finnish comedy in which a mild-mannered night watchman, who seems to be living in a world of his own, becomes an unwitting patsy in a jewelry-store robbery when he opens up to a woman who has seemingly taken a romantic interest in him.As the much put-upon working man who allows a femme fatale to trick him into doing her dirty work for her, Janne Hyytiaien gives a marvelously deadpanned performance that perfectly reflects the spare, archly humorous world director Aki Kaurismaki has created for the film. With a tone of cool detachment, the script rarely lets us into the mind of this strangely uncommunicative and inscrutable young man, whose emotions and thoughts are always buried somewhere deep beneath an expressionless surface. Yet, somehow, despite his reticence, he still manages to pique our interest and engage our sympathy, primarily because his predicament and his lack of a conventional reaction to it are both so comically unsettling. We find ourselves identifying and rooting for him even though we don't really get to know all that much about him. In a way, he reminds us a bit of Meursault from Camus' "The Stranger," a man so emotionally detached from the world around him that his actions aren't always explicable to those of us who are residing in the "real world" watching him perform them.Though it is a difficult film to pigeonhole, "Lights in the Dusk" is a modest, unassuming work that touches both the heart and the funny bone in roughly equal measure.

Tronc This movie sucked. I cannot say anything good about this Finlandia movie. If the style was not done intentionally the director, Aki Kaurismaki, needs to be prevented from ever making another film in his life. And if his kids ever want to make a movie they should be prevented as well just on the principle of who their father is. All through this, thankfully, short movie I kept wondering if this was being done on purpose. It wasn't sure if he wasn't trying to be funny. I'm almost interested in finding a few other Finnish movies to see if this is the norm. I've heard that Finland has the most depressed people with the highest suicide rate. Watch this movie and you'll want to kill yourself too.

johno-21 I saw this at the 2007 Palm Springs International Film Festival and it's a drama that's so over the top that it's essentially a comedy and a parody of French New Wave films of the late 50's and early 60's. This is written, directed and produced by veteran Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki and beautifully shot by veteran cinematographer Timo Salminen with a wonderful production design from Markku Pätilä. This is the story of a lonely and picked upon security guard who we only know by his last name of Koistinen. He's a nice enough guy who's not bad looking but kind of short and wears slick backed greasy hair. He has no friends or girlfriends and fails to notice that the equally mousy hot dog vendor Aila has a crush on him. Koistinen doesn't fit in with the others at work and has plans to start his own security business. One day he meets the beautiful Mirja who befriends him with the premise of a possible unlikely relationship but she is the moll of a gangster named Lindholm and is only using Koistinen. All the characters play it extremely straight with very little emotion even when angered and never smile. I've never seen a film with so much smoking of cigarettes in it. Ashtrays are filled to the top and smoking is in virtually every scene. There are subtle comedic scenes throughout and I would probably need to see this a second time to catch ones I missed like when Mirja is vacuuming Lindholm's apartment. This is not a great film but it's different enough to be good and even though I only give it a 6.5 out of 10 I wouldn't mind seeing it again. This may even have the possibility of being a personal cult favorite of mine in years to come and my rating could go up.