Lights in the dusk Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Boutique distributor Strand Releasing may be small, but they have exquisite taste when it comes to the films they acquire. They're willing to take on films that others might feel have limited commercial appeal. Yet they're still going strong after nearly 20 years in the business, which means they know what they're doing. Recent releases include Aki Kaurismäki's Lights in the Dusk and Eytan Fox's The Bubble. Brian Brooks of indieWIRE reports that their latest acquisition, announced in Toronto on Saturday night, is Jacques Nolot's Before I Forget.

Strand has picked up all North American rights to the French drama. Jacques Nolot both directed and plays the lead role, "a former gigolo who has been HIV-positive for 24 years," according to a review by Lisa Nesselson in Variety when it played at Cannes. He "navigates a slew of physical and emotional obstacles with mordant aplomb. ... Proceedings would be risible and sordid in less-refined hands, but Nolot has a knack, often via nicely handled incongruity, for finding the human comedy in awkward situations."

Before I Forget is the third in a trilogy by Nolot that includes 1998's L' Arrière Pays and 2002's La Chatte à Deux Têtes. Nolot's film acting career covers more than 60 roles essayed over a period of more than three decades. Before I Forget screens for the public in Toronto on September 13 and 15. It's due to be released in its native France on October 17. Strand has not yet announced their distribution plans.

There are few surprises in the initial slate of submissions for Best Foreign Picture. Last year's submissions were fraught with controversy, as Austria's French-language entry, Caché was deemed ineligible by the Academy along with Italy's entry, Private, which was dinged for featuring Arabic and Hebrew but no Italian. This year a rule change has gone into effect that allows foreign picture submissions to feature any combination of languages (not just the dominant language of the submitting country) so long as the primary language is not English.

Canada's submission, the first to take advantage of the new rule, is Deepa Mehta's Water, a Hindi-language film starring Canadian-born actress Lisa Ray. Mehta, though born in India, is herself a Canadian resident. Water was the third in Mehta's controversial and political "elements" trilogy that started with Earth and Fire, and features a story centered around the plight of widows in India, who are often relegated to life of poverty. The tale of what Mehta went through just to make this film could be a movie in and of itself. Initially set to film in India, the set was shut down after numerous death threats when the Indian government determined it could not ensure Mehta's safety, and didn't start filming again for over three years.

Watching Lights in the Dusk, the latest feature from prolific Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki, you could be forgiven for thinking someone has slipped Quaaludes to the entire cast of a 1950s noir film. Everyone moves carefully and very slowly, while the entire city of Helsinki seems to be under a blanket of silence and isolation. Indeed, apart from the film's cast, the city appears to be deserted: There are no passers-by, no irate motorists, and no nosy neighbors. Just the movie's handful of gangsters, along with the social detritus with whom they casually become involved.

The film centers on Koistinen (Janne Hyytiäinen), a man so forgettable that, after three years in his night security job, his supervisor still asks his name when he signs out for the evening. As played by Hyytiäinen, Koistinen is aggressively Keaton-esque, both in his immovable visage and his expression of constant concern -- the worried creases between his eyes never lift. It's as if he's got secret knowledge that, any minute now, something awful will happen. And, after the first few minutes of the film, we understand Koistinen's worldview: He's greeted with instinctive disgust everywhere he goes, even by those who don't know him. Prepared as he is for constant disaster, however, Koistinen greets each new slight with nothing more than a sigh, and his only response is to make himself less conspicuous.

Not to sound too self-deprecating, but going to Cannes will invariably make you feel acutely self-conscious of how much you don't know about world cinema. Case in point: A friend who knew about my heading to this year's festival said "Oh, exciting -- you get to see the new Kaurismäki ... " and I sort of agreed, trying to conceal my ignorance with reflected enthusiasm. A brief bit of research brought Aki Kaurismäki's resume back to the forefront of my brain -- a Finnish writer-director, he's perhaps best known for the 1989 comedy Leningrad Cowboys Go America. Playing as part of the official competition selection here in Cannes, Kaurismäki's Lights in the Dusk wound up being a surprising highlight -- a perfectly-pitched deadpan existential comedy shot with style and meticulous timing, helped along by performances from actors perfectly in tune with the sensibilities of the material.

Koistinen (Janne Hyytiäien) works as a security guard; he walks his route clad in his uniform, making sure the city's supermarkets and streets are safe, a stoic face peering into the night. Koistinen seems like an odd man out; his supervisors harass him, and his co-workers leave en masse after work for a drink without inviting him. Koistinen's face tells you he's been through this before; he expects it. One night, a beautiful woman named Mirja (Maria Järvenhelmi) approaches him and asks him out; they have an evening together, and although his face doesn't show it (indeed, his face rarely shows anything) Koistinen can't believe his good fortune. ...