Lights In The Dusk

Aki Kaurismaki's Lights In The Dusk is a slow film. Jim Jarmusch slow. So slow that it makes its 78 minutes feel close to two hours. The hero of the story is betrayed, abandoned, beaten, put in prison, ridiculed, and left for dead. He gets angry and takes action once in the movie. It is about as simple a movie I've seen in the last year. Not a great deal happens, but it is pleasing to look at and somehow manages to make anger rise in the viewer with very understated actions and pretty motivated lighting. Like a Jarmusch film it has a style, but never extends beyond the realm of the possible. It felt a little like Broken Flowers meets Out of the Past. I was mostly unmoved by the things that happen to put-upon patsy Koistinen until towards the end when the final instances of passive action happens to him. That Aki Kaurismaki can elicit such a response with such a slight film proves there was more going on in the movie than I initially thought while watching it. It takes patience but you will come to seethat it is a purely emotional film. It is sad, touching, meditative, quiet and has something like a universally themed story.