When you press the F5 or F6 buttons on the keyboard, the system should show a semitransparent backlight level indicator at the bottom of the screen, but if you have auto backlight adjustments enabled, then the system will not show any level indicator and just brighten or dim the backlight as is necessary however, in some instances these options may not work as expected.
To adjust the illumination you can either press the function keys on the keyboard (usually the F5 and F6 keys) or enable automatic adjustments however, there may be times when these adjustments do not work properly. A number of Apple's portable systems come with a backlight that illuminates the keyboard for easy viewing in dark environments.