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Poster for Lights in the Dusk

Lights in the Dusk

2006 · 1h 18m · Not Rated Comedy, Drama
Directed by Aki Kaurismäki

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Overview

Outcast by his co-workers and living alone, Koistinen is a security guard who works the night shift in a luxury shopping mall in Helsinki. But when icy blonde Mirja approaches him, the lonely Koistinen falls helplessly for her, unaware she is manipulating him for her criminal boyfriend.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
68%
Tomatometer
Rotten

Kaurismaki creates some beautiful frames, carefully composing his affectless characters against the rooms' colors, but there's something wrong with your story when people are upstaged by the decor.

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader
Fresh

It's a deceptively satisfying, almost magical achievement, like being stranded in a desert yet never going thirsty.

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe
Rotten

Kaurismaki is self-consciously tapping into the raw pathos of an earlier time in cinema (the pain and loss that often accompanied Charles Chaplin's Little Tramp, for example). The idea works, though it is finally wearing.

Tom Keogh, Seattle Times
Rotten

The director's existential sarcasm is muted here.

Bill Stamets, Chicago Sun-Times
Fresh

The distance Kaurismki creates belies his deeply humanistic streak. He engages characters in the direst of situations not to see them suffer but to search for hope.

Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times

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