Suburban lights

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Movie
German title Suburban lights
Original title Laitakaupungin valot
Country of production Finland
original language Finnish , Russian
Publishing year 2006
length 78 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Aki Kaurismäki
script Aki Kaurismäki
production Aki Kaurismäki
camera Timo Salminen
cut Aki Kaurismäki
occupation
chronology

←  Predecessor
The man without a past

Lights of the suburbs (original title: Laitakaupungin valot , international title: "Lights in the Dusk") is a feature film by the Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki .

action

Koistinen is a security guard in a modern business district of Helsinki, where the streets are eerily empty at night. His nightly patrols lead him through large shopping buildings. He hardly comes into contact with his environment. He finds it difficult to break out of his lonely existence. He is cut, if not even bullied, by his colleagues. He clings to the idea of ​​entering the industry as a self-employed entrepreneur and studies business administration. However, his application for a start-up loan is rejected by the bank. His only acquaintance, Aila, works in a grill bar.

When the blonde Mirja sits down at his table one evening, his loneliness seems to have come to an end. But Mirja turns out to be a decoy of a gang of criminals. As instructed, she numbs Koistinen with a sleeping pill and steals his service keys so that her accomplices can easily rob a jewelry store. Then Mirja visits him on the pretext of wanting to "explain everything" to him. He doesn't seem to care. He watches as she hides the keys and a couple of necklaces under a sofa cushion. Resigned to fate, he was arrested by the police who arrived shortly afterwards and did not reveal Mirja at the trial. He is sentenced to one year imprisonment for aiding and abetting burglary. Aila writes him a letter in custody, which he tears up unread.

After his release, he finds work in a restaurant that is also used by the gangsters. When Mirja and the gang boss recognize him, they tell the owner of the restaurant that he has a criminal record for theft. He will be released immediately. For the first time he wants to defend himself, takes a knife in his hand and approaches the gang boss and Mirja's client. Bodyguards intercept him. Later he is seen lying on the ground, beaten half-dead. A boy showing the bodyguard's dog around tells Aila and leads her to Koistinen. She extends her hand, which is seized by him.

Between the usual style and renewal

After more than a dozen films, Aki Kaurismäki is often confronted with the accusation of repeating himself and becoming a caricature of himself. His style appears mannered, he has not developed further in the 15 years until Lights of the Suburbs and only varies his cosmos, which has now become uninteresting.

The essential elements of a typical Kaurismäki film are also present in the lights of the suburbs : silent characters, long looks, long shots, melancholy old hits, injustice. Good and bad are easy to distinguish. In a desolate environment, the main character appears sympathetic through her naive, romantic hope.

But the pictures are unusually colorful, and some of the interiors are almost Almodóvar -like, even if they are sparsely lit. Contemporary Finland, which was largely excluded from Kaurismäki's previous works, is given more space this time; a dark-skinned boy also appears. The main characters Koistinen and Mirja are cast with good-looking actors, Kaurismäki's anti-diva Kati Outinen has a brief appearance as a cashier in the supermarket.

Basically the work is a film noir because the hero can only lose. Everyone bullies the weaker, and Koistinen dislikes that logic; his going to prison, so one interpretation, does not deprive him of his chances in life because he never had them anyway.

background

Was filmed in Helsinki district Ruoholahti , were hoisted in the modern in the 1990s after the departure of the industry (Nokia's cable production) glass palaces that now house mainly technology development centers (Nokia Telecommunications) and business premises. The quarter therefore empties at night.

The title of the film alludes to Chaplin's city ​​lights . The film has been declared by Kaurismäki as the third part of a Finland trilogy. The first part ( clouds are passing by , 1996) deals with the topic of unemployment, the second ( The Man Without a Past , 2002) the homelessness and lights of the suburbs is dedicated to loneliness.

criticism

epd Film saw a "captivating loneliness portrait and touching love story, in the guise of a cool Kaurismäki-style crime thriller." The FAZ was not happy about Kaurismäki's constant style and his unmoved heroes, but in its saddening despair the film has a mute one Size that could compete with the film noir models. The taz affirmed that the film reveals the structural violence that people do to other people and the de-solidarization of society. According to the criticism of the world, there is “no strained looking, but a comfortable return to a long-familiar place.” This film by Kaurismäkis with its repeated, forever identical characters and locations is “one copy too many.” She hesitantly called the film kitsch, because Kaurismäki thinks the poor are better people. Thefilm received positive reviewsin the Frankfurter Rundschau , but was described as a "side work" by the director. Kaurismäki impresses with laconic and sophisticated details. Unfortunately, the main character Koistinen is spoken with inappropriately pathos in the German dubbed version.

Nana AT Rebhan from Arte summed up: “Kaurismäki stages a self-contained cosmos, in which every shot bears the signature of the Finnish director. His laconic dialogues, the reduced acting of the actors and the soundtrack complement each other perfectly. The architecture of the district where Koistinen works - the Ruoholahti district in Helsinki - appears cold and deserted. His apartment is minimally furnished. The home of a joyless person who has reduced his life to the practical aspects of life - eating, drinking and sleeping. Koistinen doesn't need more, he doesn't expect more from life. That is why he also accepts his fate. He is serving two years in prison for helping with theft, only to end up in a home for men in which his life is reduced to the absolute minimum: There is a bed, a table and a chair - that is all. "

Awards

The film was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 59th Cannes International Film Festival in 2006. At the 2007 Finnish Jussi Film Awards , he won the awards for best film , best director (ex aequo with Aku Louhimies for Valkoinen kaupunki) and best production design.

Suburban Lights was originally intended to be Finland's 2007 Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film . However, Kaurismäki, who had not been asked by the responsible Finnish decision-makers, demanded that the film be withdrawn - because of his stance towards the United States and especially against its war in Iraq. The entry was ultimately disqualified.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, December 21, 2006, p. 33: The very sadest story
  2. ↑ a b Rüdiger Suchsland: dry, extra dry, dried out. In: The world. December 21, 2006, accessed February 3, 2018 .
  3. ↑ a b Frankfurter Rundschau, December 21, 2006, p. 15: Innocence and Atonement
  4. ↑ a b c Dietmar Kammerer: Koistinens Kreuzweg. In: taz. December 21, 2006, p. 15 , accessed February 3, 2018 .

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