LIFF '09: LOW LIGHTS (ARTIMOS ŠVIESOS) review

(Screened as part of the 23rd Leeds International Film Festival running from 4th-22nd November 2009.)

Two cars, three people and a city after dark. It's not a great deal to work with, and it's hardly the most original idea ever conceived - there will be plenty who dismiss the film as tired, trite or derivative - but Ignas Miškinis' Low Lights (Artimos Šviesos) turns the seemingly inconsequential into a gorgeously presented, captivating faux-road movie that proves a late contender for one of the best films of the year.

It really is that straightforward; Tadas (Dainius Gavenonis) is an insurance salesman in Lithuania's capital Vilnius, tied to a stultifying desk job where he and his wife Laura (German actress Julia Maria Köhler) hardly ever see each other. One day an old schoolfriend, Linas (Jonas Antanėlis) runs into him, back in the country for a brief holiday after emigrating to the US.

Let's go for a drive tonight, Linas suggests. To where, Tadas asks? Nowhere in particular, Linas tells him. Just start the car and travel around the city. Some subconscious impulse compels Tadas to take his friend up on the offer, and the rest of the film follows them through the night.

It's difficult to elaborate further without spoiling much of what happens. The story is a simple one, and countless movies have used its different arcs before; key plot points are predictable, with many of them hinging on one piece of character motivation that will strike the sceptical as hopelessly contrived.

But the pleasure to be had here doesn't come from big reveals or white-knuckle tension. Accept that the basic gist of the story has merit - three people trying to rediscover themselves, each unwilling to acknowledge they have a problem - and much of the rest of the film falls neatly into place. Low Lights may depend on a well-worn theme but the exquisite pacing, effortless polish and fantastically measured performances from the leads still put it head and shoulders above most films covering the same ground in the past decade.

The pacing is phenomenal, beginning with the opening exposition setting up Tadas' day-to-day routine, the sequence rhythmic, quietly urgent yet never overt or didactic. The sense of tension is barely there, but it is being established right from the credits, to the point repeated narrative devices end up much more powerful than might be expected because even if the viewer sees the foreshadowing written in, they'll more than likely miss its relevance to the bigger picture.

Take 'restarting', where the leads hold their breath and kill their headlights at speed, in the dark, turning them back on when they gasp for air. On one level it will surprise no-one where this goes but on another what happens needs to happen, artistically, technically; the characters ache for it almost as much as the audience, to the point it goes beyond a convenient conclusion and becomes a genuine, breathlessly emotional release.

It must be said again that both artistically and technically Low Lights is excellent - again, countless filmmakers have shot urban surroundings at night but Miškinis (a former adman) shows an almost effortless restraint, something close to Song Il-Gon (Magicians, Feathers in the Wind) in the way he can point a camera at the utterly mundane and turn his home country's capital city into something almost painterly. The soundtrack shows the director's roots, but like the visuals it's never forced on the viewer, always serving the imagery rather than existing solely to jazz up the production.

In this way the cast also serve as part of a larger whole - Miškinis' script is pretty sparse, but his three leads each give effortless, beautifully nuanced performances. These people are archetypes with the bare minimum of narrative detail but the actors internalise more than enough to bring them to life, sympathetic, winning and never less than absorbing. Standing in Vilnius airport aimlessly watching the crowds, Low Lights still says more in five minutes than most of the competition manage in ninety or more.

Many won't credit the film with much of anything, but for those viewers willing to sit back and experience it, feel it as a kind of tone poem or brief pages from a video diary, Ignas Miškinis' second feature is an utterly spellbinding experience, all the more impressive coming from such a tiny domestic film industry. It makes the familiar seem absolutely magical, evokes pure cinematic joy out of next to nothing, begs for repeat viewings and comes hugely recommended.