The themes are timeless: the individual’s inability to fit in, youth, friendship and love, and above all, the impossibility and possibility of creating art. Countless films have been made on these themes, and there will always be more to come.
Lauri-Matti Parppei’s A Light That Never Goes Out (Jossain on valo joka ei sammu) is a portrayal of a classically trained flautist’s (Samuel Kujala) mental and artistic crisis and his attempts to overcome it. Salvation is found through improvised music and a lasting friendship (Anna Rosaliina Kauno).
The greatest accomplishment of this film, which won the Finnish Jussi Award for Best Film of the Year (along with six other Jussis), is its ability to set timeless themes within a specific location, the city of Rauma on the Finnish West Coast, and in the Rauma regional dialect. Parppei’s Rauma resembles certain Helsinki neighbourhoods in Aki Kaurismäki’s films or Marcel Pagnol’s Marseille – a city beyond the cities. And the film’s music, also composed by Parppei, seems to resonate in a time that defies time.
Veli-Matti Huhta