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The Man Without a Past

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"A Man without a Past", a 2002 masterpiece of Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki, may well be his best film to date. It relates the story of a welder (Markku Peltola), who is one night coming home from work and while resting on a bench he is assaulted by a group of muggers and beaten almost to death. Yet he regains consciousness, but only to find he does not remember who he is, what's his name -- anything.

Subsequently, the man is taken care of by a community of very-close-to-homeless people, who, nevertheless, lend a helping hand, together with a local Salvation Army group. The man even starts a relationship with a shy, devout Army member Irma (Kati Outinen).

"A Man without a Past" is a film about humanity, about what makes us human, about that we all are different but everyone of us can be an asset to those around us -- and it needn't necessarily be a money aid. The people in this movie help and get the help back. Kaurismaki's directing is up to par with another European great, Almodovar, in that he understands his characters and tolerates their minor mistakes.

The film has many great moments, brilliant dialogues and even a melodramatic ending. Actors' performances are very natural and although the every single character has his/her very own way of viewing the world, the story is ultimately quite believable. After all, life itself writes most unbelievable stories.

Deservedly winning several awards at 2002 Cannes festival, "A Man without a Past" scored the first ever Foreign Film Oscar nomination for Finland. I was writing this review five days before the Oscar ceremony and I saw none of its four contenders, but I felt this Finnish film was a favourite and destined to become a classic.

If you're looking for a film to watch for entertainment and great cinema at once, this may be it. And you will get a large dose of warmth to your heart as a bonus.

THE MAN WITHOUT A PAST is a wonderful, lonely, and quiet film about M, a man who has suffered amnesia after being beaten and robbed while sleeping on a public park bench in the Finnish capital of Helsinki. He does not remember his name, or know anything about his past. But instead of going on a crusade to discover his true identity, he simply goes with the flow of life. After being pronounced dead at the hospital he wakes up in a deserted industrial area near the sea and is befriended by its local inhabitants. But M soon finds that his attempts to re-enter society is strongly hindered by the fact that he doesn't remember his name. Instead of being defeated M continues to go about living his life. He eventually rents an abandoned container car and plants a small vegetable garden outside his front door. M develops a new life while leaving the old one behind.

During this film there is a lack of any type of facial expressions or emotions of the characters, even when they are speaking to each other. The dialogue is slow and serious and there is not much action involved. This is what makes THE MAN WITHOUT A PAST a truly unique film. Not many people would appreciate this film with the underlying humor and silences. There is little doubt that this is the best foreign film I've seen for some time. My only complaint about this DVD is the lack of special features. I would really enjoy listening to a director or actor commentary of this film. Regardless, this is an excellent film.

This Finnish film may not be for everyone. Though nominated in 2002 for an Oscar for best foreign film, I don't think it got much play here. It's a quiet movie about a guy who is beaten in a park in Helsinki right after getting off a train. The hospital thinks he's dead, but he staggers out, gradually recovers, and can't remember a thing. He meets a number of people, most of whom help him in some way or another. He meets a Salvation Army woman and a relationship developes.

It's hard to describe this movie. The dialoque is often funny, but delivered absolutely deadpan. There is no excitement, but a rich development of story and relationships through incidents that happen to the lead character or that he causes to happen. The two leads, Markku Peltoa and Kati Outinen, are adults and look it. There's no Hollywood handsomeness about either of them. The structure of the movie is a gem of economy. One scene ends and the film moves briskly on to the next scene. No extended, unnecessary character development. No superfluous dialoque. It may sound pompous, but this movie creates at the end a nice feeling of mature contentment.

The DVD of the film is crisp and strong; an excellent transfer. There are no significant extras.

This movie reminded me quite a bit of "Ariel," one of Kaurismaki's older films, and I would say that "Ariel" and "The Man Without a Past" are the best of his films that I have seen.

Here, a man is mugged and severely beaten shortly after arriving in Helsinki. He suffers from amnesia and, without any identification, tries to survive as best he can without knowing his own name, let alone his social insurance number. He lives in a cargo container on the Helsinki waterfront, and ends up getting a low paying job with the Salvation Army.

He falls in love with one of the Salvation Army ladies (Kati Outinen, who starred in Kaurismaki's "The Match Factory Girl"), but things get complicated when he eventually learns his real identity. His newfound love seems in jeopardy as he leaves Helsinki for his hometown in order to see a wife who is a stranger to him, and who may or may not be happy to see him again.

I won't spoil the films ending by telling you how things turn out - but I will highly recommend this movie!

I've noticed that some reviewers seem to think that Kaurismaki is making a negative statement about Finland's economy, and I can see why they think so: Most of the Finns you see are living in dingy apartments, cargo containers and dumpsters. But Kaurismaki's films have almost always been about the lower class/lumpen proletariat, in the same way that Eric Rohmer and Whit Stilman make films about the bourgeoisie. In Kaurismaki's "The Leningrad Cowboys Go to America," he portrayed the U.S. in the same fashion, showing mainly rundown neighborhoods and the lower strata of American society.

Finns are known for their melancholy spirit (which some blame for their high suicide rate). It is something that one discerns from the books of Mika Waltari to the songs of Hector, as well as the films of Aki Kaurismaki. We see it in "The Man Without a Past," but I think that the real message of this film is one of hope: Even under the most adverse of living conditions, where one is without material wealth or even memories of the past, one can still find happiness in simple things like a glass of beer and a song on the jukebox, or from bigger things like the love of another.

Someone called this movie "deadpan," and immediately many critics latched on to that word, adding other descriptive phrases such as "frozen Finnish treat" and "subversive comedy." This is very humourous to me - as if shifting the focus of comedy from gross-out jokes and one-liners to characters and mannerisms were some kind of astounding novelty. In fact, the style of Man Without A Past, where the humour is derived from emotional depth and human behaviour, recalls any number of those old Soviet comedies, like The Irony Of Fate, or Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears, despite the numerous obvious differences. So, don't believe the critics - the movie isn't subversive, it's not frozen (quite on the contrary, it's extremely warm), it's not highly stylized, and the word "deadpan" doesn't fit it at all. It is, however, hilarious, poignant, and extremely appealing.

The film is carried first and foremost by the performance of its main actor, Markku Peltola, who has the kind of face that immediately engages the audience's attention and sympathy. His eyes themselves are very emotive; in the beginning of the film, it's their look of faraway sorrow, surely, that puts viewers so firmly on the character's side, and later on, the effectiveness of many scenes is derived just from the man's way of comporting himself, from the hilarious way he sits on the couch and regards the Salvation Army band, or from the serious way in which he listens to the ruined businessman without showing a trace of surprise at seeing him again, or from his very posture during the parting scene with Irma, and so on. Sometimes, his mannerisms inspire hysterical laughter, not because they are somehow inherently comical, but because his character is so appealing. In this film, laughter is the audience's way of supporting the character.

But there's no cloying sugariness here. If it wasn't for the great main characters, Kaurismaki's world would be very bleak indeed. The setting is a very severely economically depressed Finland, in which people plug up drafts with cloth, live in abandoned containers, have trouble finding food, and run the risk of being beaten to death by vicious thugs if they venture outside at night. The very first scene shows Peltola's character being the unlucky victim of such a beating; as a result, he completely loses his memory (hence the title of the movie), and ends up stumbling down to the containers and collapsing in the dirt, and the rest of the film has him rebuilding his life in this broken-down world. But despite the dangers and the poverty, there isn't a doomy or despairing air to it - the people who live in it smoke their cigarettes, nod, get by somehow, expect the worst, and don't make much of it. When Peltola's character assumes his sorrowful look, it's not the crushing sort of sorrow that might paralyze a human being, but a sober, dignified sort, where one simply wishes to reflect on things without letting them get the upper hand. Another character wears an old suit whenever he goes to "eat out," which means going to a soup kitchen, and regards his attire with unmistakable satisfaction. These people might not be happy, in the way we might think of that notion, but they don't really need to be. They don't directly fight life at every turn, but, like Erich Maria Remarque's characters, they will never surrender to it.

Then there's the soundtrack, which is really rather good. There's a smattering of classical music; a few Finnish songs that sound, in style, a lot like Russian romances from the early twentieth century; and lastly, that good time rock and roll, from a few songs by a completely unknown 60s band called The Renegades, to the terrific Finnish theme song, which, in the movie, is played by the Salvation Army band after they discover the charms of three electric guitar chords and some drums. That scene, complete with Finnish lyrics, turns out to be the high of the whole movie - since we've been cheering for the character for a long time by now, his triumph (and his it is, properly) is ours, and somehow, it is contained in the very way the band's singer sings, more than in the lyrics. Closing the soundtrack is the song played over the ending credits, also performed by that band, sung in English and just as good as the other one (and the guitar line sounds a lot like something from the album Laid by the band James, but that's another matter). The line "we'll be all right," in context, isn't just a line, it's the theme of the movie. People make their own happiness, ultimately, and "M," having lost literally everything, right down to his own name, created far more than he ever had to lose, out of the very detritus around him. And isn't that, after all, what it really means to take life on one's own terms? And if so, could there possibly be a better way to live?

My simple conclusion: If you want to see a movie that has affection for its characters, you need to see this one, since there hasn't been and won't be another one like it for a long while.

Finally America acknowledged the undeniable talent of this prolific Finnish director, Aki Kaurismaki, by giving this film Oscar nomination (for foreign language films). His acquired taste for droll, dead-pan humor is fmous among the fans; unfortunately some find it hard to savor the taste at first, but it will be infectious after several repeated watching.

Plus "The Man without a Past" is a love story, too, and a good one. It starts with a middle-aged man at Helsinki station, where he is attacked by muggers. He loses his memories, and wanders in the city, looking for a help. The bureaucrats are not kind, but the people living in a deserted contanier by the port offers one, and he starts a new life. He just has to look forward.

And he meets a lady Irma working at the Salvation Amry (Kati Outinen, Kaurismaki's muse). She looks rigid in uptight uniform, but actually a kind of a woman who listens to rock'n'roll music at her apartment. The man and Irma fall in love with each other -- it's Irma's first love -- and the film follows the life of them (and those of other oddball characters) very tenderly.

To explain the plot itself is almost pointless. The charm of "The Man without a Past" comes to you when you realize that the apparently small things in life depicted here can be the source of happiness for the characters. Irma and the man are both ordinary people, to whom slight things mean a lot. And the subtle expressions of Kati Outinen perfectly conveys the sense of the blissful life even if you don't have much money.

The humor is eveywhere. with Kaurismaki's original touch. The hospitalized man (after mugged at the station) looks exactly like an "Invisible Man" with bandages all over his face (a sly mataphor); "The fierce dog" named "Hannibal" is actually a lazy pup who seems to refuse to bite; the bank robber is actually a kind-hearted guy whose motive for the crime is nothing selfish. And see the unique defence tactics of the lawyer at court. Thus, behind the story, you notice Kauismaki insert his commentary about the Finnish society.

But the film is a life-affirming love story, and best enjoyed as such. The ending is one of the best I have seen in love stories, and you will leave the theater quietly smiling.

Trivia: The Salvation Army manager/vocal of the band is played by Annikki Tahti, famous singer in Finland. The song you hear at the end of the film "Do You Remember Monrepos?" is her hit song in 1955.

I made a hellish trip to see this movie and was hoping it would be worth it. It blew me away with the humor. There were only three other people in the theater with me, one of them being a friend. There were parts that only I laughed out loud to but I couldn't stop. This movie has an underlying humor that makes some people lose their marbles.
It was well worth the trip and definitely started my fascination with the actors and director. I am happy that I was able to see it in Finnish with English captions.
I recommend this movie to anyone who has or hasn't seen the director's previous work.

The beginning of this movie, a brutal and random mugging, makes you wonder if you really want to watch the rest of it. Stick around anyway. It's a good one.
Once the victim awakens from his coma, his memory has been erased. Still swathed in bandages, he skips from the hospital and wanders the outlying neighborhoods of Helsinki till he stumbles into a sort of hobo encampment. He makes a new life for himself in an abandoned railroad car or container box or some such thing - and then makes a friend of a Salvation Army worker, who helps him land a job with the organization. He plants a few potatoes, manages a small pick-up band, sticks to his job, and carefully moves forward with his odd life, still not knowing who he is. Then he happens upon a construction site and gravitates like a magnet to the welders. His obvious facility with the welding art leads to his eventual identity, but by then, who cares? You've become caught up in his successful attempts to get on with the business of living.
Great little sleeper of a movie.

A man (Markku Peltola) develops nearly complete amnesia when he is beaten and left for dead shortly after arriving in Helsinki. After being nursed back to health by a poor but generous family, he must make a new life for himself without the benefit of anything to start with. His lack of identity proves to be an obstacle in this increasingly bureaucratized world. But his spirits are lifted when he meets as falls in love with a Salvation Army worker (Kati Outinen) who has helped him.

"The Man Without a Past" is the second film in director Aki Kaurismaki's "Finland Trilogy". (The first was 1996's "Drifting Clouds".) I am not sure of the precise time in which the film is supposed to take place, but it looks like the 1950's in costumes and cars, and also in the characteristics of the film stock. The colors in "The Man Without a Past" look a lot like Technicolor. The recent Hollywood trend to revive old cinematographic techniques and approximate old film stocks seems to have traveled beyond the borders of the United States -or maybe it started there. And why not, as still photographers have never hesitated to use archaic methods or materials if it would give them the desired result . I'm all for it in motion pictures if it adds something to the story, and here it does. "The Man Without a Past" is a quiet film about mostly quiet characters, both literally and figuratively. The characters speak very little, and when they speak it is frequently in vague terms. Funny lines are always delivered completely deadpan. But I wouldn't call the film pretentious. It's as low-key as its subjects. It's just about a man rediscovering his identity and a joy for life, and finding a place for himself for a second time, at a much later point in life than we usually do these things. Many movie goers will find "The Man Without a Past" too uneventful, but if you'd like a quiet, almost delicate, film with a good-humored outlook, this is a good one. Finnish with English subtitles. The DVD allows you to turn the subtitles on or off, but there are no bonus features.

"The Man Without a Past" is the fine sequel to "Kauas pilvet Karkaavat"("Drifting Clouds"). This film deserved the Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film for 2002(Finland). The plot is brilliant! It combines tragegy, hope, love, and anger beautifully. From the moment the lead character is severely assaulted and left with amnesia, the chain of events continue to build until the end, giving the audience the added excitement the whole time. Multiple ironic details are discovered as "the man"(he doesn't remember his name) slowly regains his memory. Many unexpected events occur, keeping everything interesting. Every actor pours their heart and soul through their characters, giving the movie theme the added emotion. Shamefully, none of them received any Oscar nominations. "The Man Without a Past" is a great movie for those looking for something unique. Many will be entertained.