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The Man Without a Past 2002 |
Review by Jonathan Cornwell |
Directed by Aki Kaurismaki
PG-13, 97 min. (some violence) |
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Starring: Markku Peltola, Kati Outinen, Juhani Niemelä, Kaija Pakarinen, Sakari Kuosmanen
Producer: Aki Kaurismaki
Screenplay: Aki Kaurismaki
Cinematography: Timo Salminen
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
Released: 4.04.03 (Limited)
(In Finnish with subtitles) |
Rating:
 (out of ) |
The Man Without a Past, from Finland's top filmmaker Aki Kaurismaki, is a film about starting over, in this case a man who
has amnesia and begins a new life amidst humble conditions. It's also a comedy, a very dry one, where viewers must
learn to appreciate Kaurismaki's strangely distant humor. His characters are static, monotone, but intensely honest,
ponderous people who would rather question their existence than their lot in life. There are scenes that are hilarious yet
probably not meant to be funny, while others that are meant to by funny but not. Whether by design or accident, Kaurismaki
gives us a film that is startling in terms of unnoticeable impact; it's only at the end that we realize what his film has done -
convince us that a man who has lost a life has actually gained a better one.
The film opens by showing a man (Markku Peltola), whose name is never revealed, brutally beaten in a park to within an
inch of his life. He awakens from a coma in a hospital and starts over, from scratch. He wanders into a poor district where
people are living in shipping containers, makes friends with one family, and eventually procures himself his own place from
a landlord who illegally leases them to the homeless. He finds a job at the local Salvation Army depot, where he meets
Irma (Kati Outinen), a worker who has seen better years but is still yearning for her first true love. A relationship ensues,
but its long-term prognosis is stilted when the man's ex-wife recognizes his picture in the newspapers after he is mistakenly
mixed up in a bank robbery. The man must now make a choice between his former life or new, more humble life.
Maybe Kaurismaki's greatest strength is that he is painstakingly deliberate with his scenes and characters' feelings. The man
and Irma develop a relationship seemingly out of nothing more than the fact that neither wants to be alone, but their true
feelings are so deeply hidden beneath their expressionless exteriors that we can only sense what they must think of each
other. Kaurismaki's characters are carefully studied but only to an extent. Their activities are routine and their lives resemble
the average person's day without embellishment. These characters are blunt, honest, and indifferent to the circumstances
surrounding them.
The Man Without a Past is, gulp, a romantic comedy, but that definition is far from what most Americans are used to seeing
at the theater. This film is intelligent, quiet, and vigilently driven by a desire to portray characters who live in the real world,
not some concoction of one's fantasy. When we see the man gently pursue Irma but then kiss her goodnight he claims that
he is "not a gentleman," but we know better as evidenced by his actions. Later, when Irma tells the man that he is her first
love, he meagerly replies, "That was beautifully said." She agrees.
The film was nominated for this year's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and also won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes 2002,
and it's not hard to understand why. It takes pleasure in the simplest things in life, portraying characters as poor but
content and happy, and it becomes ironic and fitting that the man in the film approaches his new life as the real starting point
for his life as a whole, content to leave the past in the unreachable parts of his faded memory. The man started broken
and alone, and now his happiness resides in a community that welcomes him, shipping containers and all.
© 2003 Jonathan Cornwell
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 | Masterpiece - Film perfection |
 | Excellent - A Must See |
| Good - Highly Recommended |
| Fair - Worth seeing |
| Average - Viewable, but not recommended |
| Below average - View at own risk |
| Poor - Avoid at all costs |
| Very poor - An embarassment to the film industry |
| Zero | Awful - One of the worst films ever made |
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