I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

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.

Positives first. The distinctive art direction, production design and lighting is of some interest and gives the film the film of something older.The story is obvious, the characters are undeveloped and difficult to believe and overall the film had nothing to say and no entertainment to offer. Scenes frequently finish with deadpan stares which quickly becomes tedious. The director also seems to think that chain-smoking characters will somehow add some interest and style to his film.I waited patiently thinking that perhaps there was some twist coming (like the security guard had actually planned the whole thing). Whilst this would not have been that interesting it would have been better than the whole thing plodding along inevitably.I could go on, but really I can't be bothered. It's not worth it.

Aki Kaurismaki is a great director, and yet, I would love to see him taking over some more ambitious projects. 'Lights in the Dusk' is a wonderful film from many aspects, and yet the lack of ambition of his principal hero seems to somehow overcome the whole atmosphere to an extent that it defies the logic, at least for the non-Finn viewer. The black and cynical humor in his Leningrad Cowboys series seems to have been overtaken here by plain despair.The hero of the film Koistinen (we never know his first name) is the loneliest man on Earth. He is a night-watchman who seems to be unable to connect with any of his colleagues, the only human who seems to care for him being the woman from the hot-dogs kiosk whose existence he barely acknowledges. He is not a bad man, he cares for animals, he has some baseless plans to open a business of his own who are doomed to failure, as is any tentative to look into the eyes of a woman or to just connect at all with another human being. His way of being makes him the typical victim for a criminal scheme, and the price to be paid of those who will abuse him is no more than showing him that somebody maybe cares.The cinematography of Kaurismaki is really exquisite. It is not only what he shows (the deeming lights and shades of the North, a city in an almost permanent night or dusk) but also what he does not show. An empty chair or a tripping closing door are for example his best means to describe a scene of violence without showing any violence. His actors are all wonderful, but their strength is better shown in the empty stares. They communicate or live their parallel lives in silence, and the film could have lacked any dialog without losing too much of his expressiveness.And yet, at the end, this story of victimization and resignation risks to be too depressing to be convincing. It reminded me the end of the wonderful Romanian film of Cristi Puiu 'Moartea Domnului Lazarescu'. As in Puiu's movie, it is only in the last sequence that the hero acknowledges the hand of human solidarity that is trying to reach him. Viewers leave with the feeling of wishing maybe the hero would have dared and achieved more, or that the director could have done the same.

Night watchman Koiskinen lives an alienated life. Ridiculed and shunned by his workmates, regarded as incompetent by his employers, he lives alone, drinks alone, and only manages to talk in any decent way with the woman who sell hot dogs in the fast food stand. His life changes when a mysterious blond takes a sudden and unexpected interest in him.As a Kaurismaki novice, I was struck by the spartan sets, strong primary colours, and the actors penchant for walking briskly into frames and then freezing, akin to amateur theatre in the village hall. Once you figure out it is all a send up, the film is fun and moves along quickly enough. The dry, pared down dialogue, lack of sentiment, and black humour are interspersed judiciously. There seems to be a record attempt for number of cigarettes smoked in a film going on. The Finnish attitude to alcohol makes Scotland seem like Utah. Throughout it all, Koiskinen infuriates with his passivity. His minor triumph at the end, finally making the right decision, is small, fleeting and perfect in this context. The film is both downbeat and uplifting. I don't recommend watching Kaurismaki films back-to-back, but as an antidote to an overdose of Transformers or Harry Potter, this works perfectly.