The Man Without a Past
by Aki Kaurism?ki
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Juhani Niemel?, Kaija Pakarinen, Kati Outinen, Markku Peltola, Sakari KuosmanenDirector: Aki Kaurism?ki
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: Finnish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.0; English (Subtitled); Finnish (Published), Dolby Digital 5.0; English (Published)
Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 97 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-10-07
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Sony Pictures
Movie Reviews of The Man Without a Past
Movie Review: A charming story of a man who must start from scratch with the help of a few good friends, but the politics make me uneasy
Summary: 3 Stars
Aki Kaurismaki's 2002 film MIES VAILLA MENEISYTTA (The Man without a Past) has become the director's most successful film internationally. It's easy to see why. This story of a man who gets hit on the head in a violent mugging, loses his memory, and must survive in a cold world is fairly universal in its themes. While set in Helsinki, references to concrete places there are exceedingly few, and the movie's action could be unfolding almost anywhere. The visuals of the film, such as the charmingly incongrous set design blending the 1950s and the digital era, and the preference for sky blue among the colors will certainly please a wide audience.
What does keep the film exceedingly Finnish, however, is the deadpan humour. Foreign audiences are likely to laugh at some lines that are typical communication between Finns and miss some of the more subtle Finnish humour. There's also an attack on the Finnish welfare state, and it is for this that the film has always left me uneasy. In my years of living in Finland, I've never encountered cold, uncaring civil servants like Kaurismaki depicts. Police and city bureaucrats are, though slighly stoic in the Finnish manner, friendly and approchable enough. As Kaurismaki depicts a man reduced utterly by the uncaring State, I started wondering what exactly his agenda is. At times, MIES VAILLA MENEISYTTA seems to approach some kind of neo-liberal propaganda film, and without this the film would have been much stronger.
Summary of The Man Without a Past
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 FetzerArt House & International DVD Video
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