Ray Pride

(Lautakaipungin valot) "Lights in the Dusk," the closing film of Aki Kaurismaki’s drolly dubbed "loser trilogy," follows Koistinen, a loner who’s been a night watchman for three years. He could go on this way forever, estranged from his equally glum co-workers. Janne Hyytiainen is dog perfect as the chain-smoking Koistinen, willing to drink alone. He's courtly but his cool knows its limits, as an ending as bracing as that of Kaurismaki’s brilliant "Match Factory Girl" rushes toward us. He meets an unlikely femme fatale and things might change: but probably not, as class has a way of crushing these ill-fated Finns of this deadpan minimalist. Kaurismaki’s battered protagonists are always lonely, but in the past have been jobless and homeless, yet Koistinen is wholly hapless, set in his misery until taking in the wrong smile with Keatonesque reserve. Timo Salminen’s steely cinematography is virtuous, as in all of the movies he's made with Kaurismaki, both despairing and otherworldly lush in its portrayal of modern urban anomie, a taste of 1954 dumped unceremoniously into the twenty-first century. Bar codes and car alarms in the midst of cigarette smoke and much beer and liquor, and despite the emotional brutality, as in all his films, tears of laughter mingle with those of empathy. The soundtrack ranges from the tangos of Gardel and Ensemble Mastango to Puccini. 78m.

"Lights in the Dusk" opens Friday at Siskel. (2007-07-17)

Also by Ray Pride

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Nothing Else Matters
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