• Lights in the Dusk

9/25/23 (Sun)

The third offering (2006) in Kaurismäki’s Finland/Loser Trilogy. The Finnish title Laitakaupungin Valot is a takeoff on Chaplin’s City Lights (Kaupungin Valot), apparently meaning something like “Lights from the Other Side of the Tracks” – if that’s true, maybe they should have gone with an equally pun-filled Seedy Lights or Shitty Lights (pardon the language) or Far-From-the-City Lights. Both films end with the hapless protagonist getting out of prison and an uplifting clasp of hands with a woman. But the resemblance pretty much ends there, and maybe the English titlists were wise to ignore the pun.

A socially inept security guard is disparaged by his co-workers and ignored by women. His only friend is a female hot dog vendor who, obvious to everyone but him, has feelings for him as she listens to his dreams of opening his own security firm. Nothing goes his way even when he tries to do right, such as complaining about the inhumane treatment of a dog and getting beaten up (off-screen, as usual for the director) for his troubles.

When he is approached one day by a beautiful blonde who wants to go out with him, he immediately responds, never suspecting that she has been sent by criminals to gain access to a jewelry store under his guard. She eventually drugs him and steals his keys, allowing the criminals to rob the store clean, then plants evidence in his room that leads to his arrest. The man realizes that he’s been had and even spots the woman leaving the evidence but, blinded by some sort of moral conviction or a refusal to acknowledge his naiveté, he tells the police nothing and goes to prison for a year (a prison scene is the only time he smiles).

After he gets out, he manages to find a job as a dishwasher at a high-end restaurant. When the woman and criminal visit the restaurant one day, however, they expose him as a former thief, leading to his dismissal. He tries clumsily to kill the criminal but is quickly caught, beaten, and left lying in the harbor. The hot dog seller, alerted to the situation, finds him and begs him not to die. He reaches out his hand to her for his first self-initiated action, a vaguely positive if ambiguous ending.

The man is frustratingly passive to an unrealistic degree. When the woman plants objects in his apartment linking him to the crime, for instance, we would normally expect him at least to hide them. Instead he leaves them as is and just waits for the police to arrive. That is not credible under any logic. The director’s stone-faced approach has become a parody of itself here. The character reminds some reviewers of Camus’ The Stranger, but that doesn’t excuse unrealistic behavior even within the peculiar robotic world that Kaurismäki has created. Upending expectations is one thing, as with the femme fatale’s disdain for the man even to the end. But going against human nature is another.

The film includes the director’s usual touches, including colorful rooms vs. colorless people, off-screen violence followed by on-screen bloody faces, a dog, lots of smoking and drinking, and Kati Outinen in a brief cameo. But he loses the common touch here. A disappointment.