“A joyous ode to amateur musicians and the fun to be had in making art with your friends.”

Premiering in Cannes’ ACID sidebar, A Light That Never Goes Out is a charming debut from Finnish musician-turned-filmmaker Lauri-Matti Parppei that shows how music can be a force that draws unlikely friends together. Pauli (Samuel Kujala), a renowned flautist in his late twenties, is forced to relocate to his tiny hometown on the northern coast of Finland after a nervous breakdown. Ill at ease in this quiet fishing village where nothing happens, by chance he runs into former schoolmate Iiris (Anna Rosaliina Kauno), an eccentric young woman who takes pleasure in creating experimental, abrasive noise-rock music. The two couldn’t be more different in their approaches to music – Pauli is a perfectionist who excels with classical music, while Iiris is a futurist who finds beauty in chaotic experiments with everyday objects – but they quickly find comfort in their rehearsal sessions, and together with misanthropic Sini (Camille Auer) they decide to form a band and create an entirely new sound.

While A Light That Never Goes Out doesn’t reinvent the wheel in terms of storytelling, what makes the film such a pleasurable watch and an unexpected crowd-pleaser is the lived-in quality to both its physical setting and the musical world which our two protagonists inhabit. Much of the film’s gently deadpan humor is mined from the contrast between Pauli and Iiris’ respective personalities and the placid, old-fashioned village they reside in, a less than ideal place to create music that could change the world. And while most films would treat Iiris’ strange musical compositions as a joke, Parppei takes them just as seriously as the more traditional pieces that Pauli performs, with the humor instead deriving from Iiris’ delightfully stubborn refusal to compromise her artistic vision and her insistence on performing for the types of audiences that are bound not to appreciate her work. While the film is first and foremost a comedy, it impressively weaves a melancholic strain throughout the film as Pauli’s history of depression is slowly unveiled, and it becomes clear that the music that he has made his life’s work is driving him to a breaking point. Previously obsessed with reaching the upper echelons of the classical music world, it is through his time spent with Iiris and Sini that he is reminded of the joy that comes with creating music, and the bonds that can be formed in such an artistic space. Special credit must be given to the sound work during the rehearsal and performance sequences, as the variety of “instruments” that Iiris employs for her compositions are distinct and add texture to each piece rather than being a garbled cacophony of sounds.

While on paper this could run the risk of being a run-of-the-mill “quirky” indie, the film benefits from strong character work in both writing and performance. Pauli’s depressive episodes and sense of anxiety and unease about his future can be familiar to any viewer in their twenties struggling to make sense of the chaotic times that we live in, and Samuel Kujala impressively balances both the dramatic and more comedic sides of Pauli’s tightly wound personality as he begins to loosen up and appreciate this totally new style of music. Iiris is a delightfully spiky and unpredictable counterpoint to the more reserved Pauli, and Anna Rosaliina Kauno gives the film much of its buoyant energy as the happy oddball who is determined not to fit in with the people around her. The supporting cast of gently eccentric townspeople help give the film much of its distinctly Nordic sensibility, with Camille Auer a standout as Sini, the unsung third member of the band whose seeming indifference to everything around her masks a quiet need for friendship.

A joyous ode to amateur musicians and the fun to be had in making art with your friends, A Light That Never Goes Out immediately positions Lauri-Matti Parppei and his cast as some of the most promising new talent in Nordic cinema. In focusing on two genres of music – classical and noise rock – that most would never think to pair together, Parppei has crafted a breezy tale of music and uncertain youth that is a reminder of the power of art and friendship at a time when it is needed more than ever. And maybe it will inspire an audience member or two to pursue their own wild musical dreams?