Lights in the Dusk — will it be up for an Oscar?

Reuters reports that Lights in the Dusk — the concluding chapter in Aki Kaurismäki’s “Finnish trilogy”, “unemployment trilogy“, or “loser trilogy”, depending on who you talk to — may or may not be a contender for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

The film was, in fact, submitted by Finland as the nation’s official entry, but Kaurismäki nixed that, saying that he had not given his approval to the submission, and now the Academy has begun “a dialogue” to try to persuade Kaurismäki to change his mind.

It’s a somewhat curious debate, since I have difficulty imagining the Academy would go for this particular film, in any case. The previous films in this “trilogy” — Drifting Clouds (1996) and The Man without a Past (2002; my review) — were deadpan funny, ultimately hopeful, and remarkably accessible, and it came as no surprise when the latter film was nominated for the Oscar.

But the new film, which I saw at the local film festival, is a darker, bleaker affair. Not as dark or bleak as, say, The Match Factory Girl (1990), but still not quite what the previous two films might lead you to expect. I am thus thankful for the chance I had to see Kaurismäki’s earlier films at the Pacific Cinematheque a few years ago; that gave me a better sense of where this new film “fits”.

FWIW, I also don’t think Lights in the Dusk is as memorable as the previous films in this “trilogy” — or even as memorable as The Match Factory Girl, come to that, though I would have to see both films a second time to be sure. At any rate, while every auteur will have his distinctive style, and his films will share common traits, etc., certain elements in this particular film began to feel merely recycled; the bit about the ultraviolent Hollywood movie, for example, was done before, and in a funnier, more interesting way, in Drifting Clouds. It was a little like hearing a joke from one of Woody Allen’s earlier movies repeated in one of his later movies.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good film and worth seeing. But seeing it outside of the festival circuit could be difficult, thanks to factors like these. An Oscar nomination would help, no doubt, but with 60 other foreign films in contention, I wouldn’t count on it.