The Chinese translation of "Light of Twilight" is really great. Twilight is dusk and evening. From another piece called "Lights in the Dusk", you can imagine the lonely tone of the whole film.
The male protagonist "Coinsstein" starts to work in the evening, and the story time of the whole film is almost always after the sun sets. In Finland, which has always been "cold", the night life in this developed welfare state in Aki's lens is even more lonely and rundown, just like the streets of the Third World. The workers on the street talked about Russian literature, turned their heads and said, "You can't see the sun." It seems that all of this is for the male protagonist, with ideals in his heart, but no sun in reality.
The appearance of the femme fatale accelerated his eager desire to make money successfully, but was refused loans because of his lack of education and background. Although there is no obvious performance in the movie, the male protagonist fell into despair for the materially disparity in the relationship. Seeing the femme fatale put the jewelry at home, he waited for the police to catch him, and he even smiled only in prison.
According to the information, Aki was influenced by Bresson. The actor's expression was calm and restrained. The only close-up of the character was only the eyes. I counted these eyes for about 20 seconds without blinking.
Dishwashers and revenge after being released from prison also happened at night. At the end of the film, the boy told the "ex-girlfriend" to save him, and the scene was full of the sun. It was the early morning sun.
The "ex-girlfriend" held his hand tightly and told him not to give up hope.
As the last part of the Finnish trilogy, although each shows individual helplessness, it is the dawn at the end of the film and the persistence of the "girlfriend", which also implies that the future is like the sun in the early morning. The lights after the night will eventually meet the sun.
This film was selected as Finland’s nominee for the best foreign language film at the Oscars of the year. Aki’s political stand for boycotting the foreign policy of the United States rejected the nomination and boycott of the award.
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