L'homme sans passé

Whoever has seen any of Aki Kaurismäki's films might agree that they are all but mainstream. Nevertheless, the story itself doesn't have to be too complicated. In this case, a man completely loses his past in a shockingly violent way, and he rediscovers life again in an environment of bums who sleep in containers. The good thing I found about this movie was: No romanticism of misery, no enlightenment of the tortured hero, no sob-stuff love story, no superfluous, aloof intellectualism at all. At least not in an obtrusive or overly serious way. But in a way that it sometimes shocked me , sometimes made me laugh, sometimes grin. I was never bored. And as I made it to Finland for the first time in my life a few weeks after seeing this movie - I found everything to be amazingly authentic.

A remarkable film that definitely moves into my shrine of the best 50!

MAN WITHOUT A PAST, THE (Aki Kaurismäki - Finland/France/Germany 2002).

This second installment in Aki Kaurismaki's projected "Finland Trilogy" is a heart-warming fable about a man (Markku Peltola) who loses everything, including his identity. After M, as he is referred to for the rest of the film, dozes off on a park bench, he is awoken by a trio of thugs who brutally beat him up, steal his money and toss his wallet and identity papers into the trash bin. In the hospital, he is pronounced dead by the doctors, but by some miracle he springs back to life but with no memory whatsoever of his past or his identity. Now a penniless amnesiac, he has to build his life from scratch. Without knowing a single person (and without a single person knowing him), he must try to survive, but he soon acquires a melancholy dog named Hannibal and falls in love with Irma, a lonely salvation army soup kitchen volunteer. Of course, his past does catch up with him, but it only works to point out what's really important in his future life.

Kaurismäki usually champions the outcasts of society and here it's no different. He once said: "I make films for the unemployed, but since they don't have money to buy cinema tickets I generally have no audience." Of course, Kaurismäki has a huge audience by now, but no matter how simple and accessible the story in the film might look, he still manages to blend romance, quirky comedy and social commentary, seemingly effortless into the film's narrative.

Most of the humor doesn't come from any written gags or jokes but springs from the absurdity of the situations, all in Kaurismäki's typical deadpan-comedy style, complete with nods top '50s B-movies, rock'n'roll ("rhytm music", as it's called by M), fairytale romance and an incomparable soundtrack, featuring British beat combo, The Renegades. I just love the music in this film! Time and place hover between Helsinki in the '30s and the present. Despite the idiosyncratic set-up and the strange unreal dialog, it's incredible how very real all these characters feel. Deep sentiment but every inch of it sincere. I can't get enough of this film, no matter how often I've seen it.

Camera Obscura --- 9/10

I am not familiar at all with the work of this director at all so I was unsure what to expect from this movie when seeing it as part of the Regus London Film Festival on tour.

I needn't have worried. This film is very touching and in many places laugh out loud funny. The scene where the dog is introduced is just side-splitting.

The humour is so dry and it is very hard to compare this film with many other films, but for some reason it reminded me a little of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Delicatessen, especially some of the colours in the set design.

I understand this film is the second part of a trilogy? I simply have to see more stuff from this guy, I feel like I have missed out in a big, big way!

If you get the chance, don't hesitate to see this film, it is simply a work of art. I for one will be going to see it again when it goes on general release next year.

Herzog introduced me to the tension created by moving back and forth from highly styled scenes to realistic ones in syncopated steps. It has an extraordinary effect; I do not know who first devised this technique, but it matters.

Sometimes, you will see it adding value on the real side. Rarely is it ever used this way, to multiply anchor a minimalist sketch of fate. Jarmusch does this, perhaps being the master, but this is pretty clean, novel and effective as well. Its because Fins are inherently minimalist in a particularly overt way. Stylized in a stylized way, perhaps to stand above its neighbors who value cleanliness but only after passing through terminal sophistication.

There is a sweet purity to this man we see, and the man we do not who made the thing. There is an honor in just getting up in the morning. The people here are either honest and generous — even the local cop who exploits the poor — or crippled participants in the machine. Everyone with a conventional job is in this latter class.

Just as with most Jarmusch, music and the enrichment it brings, is woven into the story as an intrinsic element. The music itself is highly stylized, and like the film is an abstraction of deep, rich emotion. It is played here by a Slavation Army band our hero brings to musical salvation. The love story matters I think, because it depends on nothing other than simple need and directness.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

This film is about as fast paced as Finnish films get, I guess. Don't look for a lot of facial expressions and a lot of overt body language because you ain't gonna get it. The film moves slowly like a Saami joiking in the sauna but it wonderful to behold with each deliberate step it takes. The characters may seem a little stiff to those of us unfamiliar with the inscrutable Finns but the great Finnish reserve which overlays the story line is tweaking at our whiskers at every shuffle forward in the story. It is really amazing that we have not seen other Finnish works before. This kind of off-the-wall story which has a wonderful basis of humanity underneath the more real than life characters clustered around a site with little or no conveniences of modern living in their sea container households. The odyssey of M who wanders through his voyage in search of himself only to be reconciled not with his long suffering and long awaiting Penelope but with a frustrated but good-hearted Major Barbara.

There are lots of puns visual and otherwise with the threads of incompetent cops, doctors, nurses, employment office workers interwoven with a comical wannabe bad-guy overseer, a rock'n roll Salvation Army band, a torch-songstress SA Major and the philosophical hero who honestly can't remember.

Check this one out without fail. It's pure fun...but just don't expect it run along at breakneck speed ala Hollywood...!