Helsinki, the present. Koistinen is a luckless loner, wearing the soles of his shoes out in a luxury shopping mall as a night watchman. With no social life, the solitary night watchman becomes instantly smitten when a stunning blonde agrees to go on a date with him. Little does he know, she's connected to a conman looking for someone to frame. Koistinen tragically ends up doing time, but strangely enough leaves jail after two years with a new purpose and a new appreciation for life. Our anti-heroic protagonist, ends up tugging at our heart strings through the sheer banality of his life, and the deadpan comedy of Kaurismaki’s close-up of impassive faces and
absurdist dialogue, filmed with direct sightlines into the camera. Lights in the Dusk is a modern morality tale of loneliness in the postmodern city. A brilliantly minimalist work, concluding Kaurismaki’s so-called 'loser trilogy' which began with Drifting Clouds (1996) and continued with the celebrated The Man without a Past (2002).
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