Other Titles • The Man Without a Past (2002) • Mies vailla menneisyyttä • Irtolainen (2001)
Synopses for The Man Without a Past (2002)
1.
The Man Without a Past delivers a new edge to the story that stirred viewers all around the world in Drifting Clouds. Without sidestepping bitter issues, one could paint an image of a small country in the North in a touching, amusing, and liberating way.
At the beginning of this new film, a man (Markku Peltola) has travelled to Helsinki in search of work, gets mugged, loses his memory, and has to start completely anew, from scratch. He discovers love (Kati Outinen), and is forced to discover values with which man will not be ashamed to live. A small story about people who still know how to be gentle, an enormous cinematic experience.
The themes contain a translucent beauty, cross-lit in a confusingly rich manner by the direction. In the case of expression, the author takes the biggest risks, and wins. We know, ultimately from Juha (1999), »the last silent movie of the 20th century», that Aki Kaurismäki is a rare breed of a portrayer of »the border area», between the urban and the countryside, the privileged sector of the class society and the margins of Finland, sentenced to anonymity. Kaurismäki’s portrayal of subservience contains dignity (neither pompous nor heavy-hearted), humour, a touch of melancholy (not far removed from the style of Chaplin), and an excellent understanding of the lot of his subjects, a lot that most probably is irrevocably at the »bottom», but one that also possesses its own rebellious delights as well as room for one’s own self. The choice is a proud one, too, as power and domination seem to corrupt always and absolutely. The ethics and style of Aki Kaurismäki are strongly related to several of the giants of cinema who have shown as well an absolute and most boundless respect for man by the creation of such a precise way of expression and such a cinematic style, with respect visible in every frame, through the means of pure cinema.
Nominated for an Academy Award (2003 Best Foreign Language Film), this second installation of acclaimed Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki's Finland Trilogy is a comic drama that's both totally unique and completely irresistible.
When a laborer (Markku Peltola) arrives in Helsinki in search of a job, he gets a brutal surprise beating in a local park by a group of thugs instead. He miraculously survives, but amnesia prevents him from remembering anything, including his name. Soon, a Salvation Army worker (2002 Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award Winner Kati Outinen) develops a shy interest in him, and a sweet, natural romance begins between the two. But just as teh man's life begins to make sense again, his past suddenly returns to haunt him.
(9 votes)
3.
The spare and quirky comedy of Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismaki is in delightful form in The Man Without a Past. A man (Markku Peltola) awakens after a brutal mugging with no memory; he wanders into the outskirts of Helsinki with his face wrapped like an escapee from a classic horror film. A destitute family helps nurse him back to health and a Salvation Army worker named Irma (Kati Outinen) helps him get a job. Though bureaucrats and policemen who can't seem to cope with this amnesiac's lack of established identity, the amnesiac plants potatoes, manages a rock & roll band, and romances Irma as he builds a new self. Kaurismaki weaves his movies out of small details and careful, cautious steps forward--but by the end, The Man Without a Past has become a rich, engrossing, and very funny portrait of the possibilities of life. --Bret Fetzer
(6 votes)
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