The Man Without a Past is a touching little romantic comedy, but not much like the romantic comedies that come out of Hollywood. There's no simmering chemistry, no sexual innuendo, and the laughs derive mainly from situational absurdities. This film is the work of Finnish independent director Aki Kaurismäki.

Historical Background: Aki Kaurismäki and his brother Mika are both independent Finnish filmmakers. They have an interesting arrangement. They share the same crews and production equipment, taking turns directing films. Both were born in Orimattila, Finland in the 1950's. When they're not making films, they manage their restaurants and bars. Their films are iconoclastic, feature deadpan acting in keeping with the taciturn Finnish character, and focus on the absurdities of human society through low-key ironic observational humor. Neither brother's work is well-known in America, but Aki has a bit of a following in the art house and film festival circuits. Critics have given due recognition to his work as well. The National Society of Film Critics in the U.S. picked Ariel (1988) as Best Foreign Film in 1990 and The Man Without a Past for the same award in 2003. Aki Kaurismäki's other best known works include Hamlet Goes Business (1987), Lenigrad Cowboys Go America (1989), and The Match Factory Girl (1990).

The Story: A stone-faced Finnish man, identified as simply "M" (Markku Peltola) in the credits, gets off the train, with his suitcase, in Helsinki. He soon falls asleep on a nearby park bench. As he sleeps, he is assaulted by a trio of muggers, who crack him over the head with a baseball bat. Even as he lies unconscious, they kick and beat him some more, steal his cash and radio, and toss his wallet and identity papers in the trash. Later, the man lies seemingly on the verge of death in a community hospital. The physician even prematurely records the time of death, when the EKG goes flat-line.

Later, the man suddenly bolts upright, in the now darkened and empty hospital room, detaches himself from the intravenous apparatus, and, shrouded in bandages, staggers out of the hospital, only to collapse some distance away, near the river. His shoes are stolen by a tramp, but when he is discovered by a pair of children, he is taken in by their poor parents, Nieminen (Juhani Niemelä) and his wife Kaisa (Kaija Pakarinen), who live in a nearby shantytown, composed of abandoned freight containers. They nurse him back to life, but M has no memory of his past or even his identity.

When M has recovered enough to be useful, he encounters the security guard, Anttila (Sakari Kuosmanen), who is the effective landlord of this freight-container community. Anttila plays at being a tough guy. He has a dog that he calls Hannibal and which he pretends is a vicious guard dog, but which is quite obviously as docile and good-natured as a dog can be. Anttila pretty much matches that same description. M is provided with the empty freight-container dwelling of a man who had frozen to death the previous winter. The first rent payment is deferred for a short while. The technician from the electric company connects M's "home" and, observing his impoverished circumstances, charges him only with the promise of a favor: "If you see me lying face down in the gutter, turn me on my back." Later, the electrician repairs a discarded jukebox for M, which conveniently plays his favorite rhythms and blues kind of tunes.

We now follow M's honest efforts to find some work. At the unemployment agency, he is ultimately thrown out because he has no identity and cannot fill out the forms. They aren't buying his claim of amnesia. In the community, however, he finds occasional support. He stops in a cafeteria, asks if they charge for the hot water, and then pulls out a used tea bag to flavor the water for his lunch. The waitress and the cook take mercy on him and provide him with some leftovers.

He also finds some support at the local Salvation Army. In the soup line, he meets Irma (Kati Outinen), a rather stern and melancholy Salvation Army officer. She initially interprets his friendly gestures as an effort to obtain double portions, but gradually recognizes that he is sincere and making a genuine effort to get his life back together. She arranges some work for him, helping out at the Salvation Army itself. Irma is devotedly religious, but has an almost equally pious devotion to Finnish pop music, lying awake, alone, in her dormitory room listening to it at night. Irma gradually warms to M and they begin to date.

M takes it upon himself to encourage the four-man Salvation Army Band of this chapter to revamp their repertoire a bit. He gains the approval of the chapter's head administrator, Kirpputorin Johtajatar (Annikki Tähti), by pointing out that more rhythmic selections will draw in a broader clientele, some of who may then be won over to the Salvation Army's Christian teachings. Pretty soon, the band is playing gigs in the shanty town and elsewhere and the audience is dancing as well as listening.

M clearly has the calloused hands of a laborer and his one vague memory is working in a large plant with some kind of hot flame. One day, he comes across some men welding something and realizes that it's an activity with which he is familiar. Although M doesn't know it, we already know that there was a welder's mask among his possessions when he was mugged. He asks the men if he can give it a try. They are impressed with his skill and the foreman mentions that there is work for him if he wants it. The personnel department can't hire him, however, unless he has a bank account. He goes to a local bank, but runs into the same old hassle because he lacks an identity. As he's negotiating with the clerk, who is the only person on duty in this nearly abandoned (and soon-to-be shut-down) bank, a man comes in with a shotgun demanding to withdraw the full amount from his own frozen bank account. M and the bank teller get locked in the vault as the man makes his getaway.

During questioning at the police station, M is, of course, unable to identify himself and is arrested for "insubordination." He is finally able to call Irma, who sends the Salvation Army's lawyer down to the police station. The lawyer makes mince meat out of the Police Captain and M is soon released. Later, M is contacted by the bankrobber and asked to deliver the "stolen" money to the man's former employees, who are owed back wages because of the bank's shady activities.

The police leak the story of the man without an identity to the press and M's picture is soon in all of the papers. This leads to his identification by his wife, in a faraway city. It turns out that M is Jaakko Antero Lujanen, a metal worker from Nurmes.

M receives this news with mixed feelings. He still has no recollection of his old life or his old wife and he's started to really care about Irma. She comes by to bid farewell, but insists that it would not be proper to stay, since he's a married man. He suggests, "You could help me pack." "But you have nothing," she replies. "That's why," says he, in the kind of logic so typical of Kaurismäki's work. She promises not to forget him. "How could I? The child of sorrow. You were my first love," Irma says, earnestly. "That was beautifully said," replies M. "Yes," says Irma.

M makes the obligatory journey home to his old life. He discovers that he was not such a fine man, not a drinker but an inveterate gambler, even gambling away all his old L.P.'s, heaven forbid! He and his wife had fought and, finally, slept in separate bedrooms. She had filed for divorce about the time he had headed south to find work. M discovers that the divorce papers have just come through and that she is, in fact, his ex-wife, rather than his wife. He meets her new companion but the two men decide over cigarettes that they have no reason to fight with one another. M simply asks the man to be good to his ex-wife and accepts a ride back to the train station. M returns to his new community of the homeless and reunites with his beloved Irma.

Themes: Like his taciturn characters, Kaurismäki doesn't choose to talk directly about his political or social views. Instead, he says only, "my social, economic, and political views of the state of society, morals, and love can hopefully be found from the film itself." One central message of this thematically rich film is the importance of community. After just a few minutes of the film, M is reduced to a thoroughly broken and bleeding condition, friendless and penniless in an unfamiliar city. He finds help not among the ablest and most advantaged members of the society, but among the most destitute. Embedded among a group of people who have become his friends and neighbors, he is able to piece his life back together. He even finds love in the form of one of the Salvation Army workers.

At the same time, Kaurismäki excoriates society for its cruel and inhuman indifference. M's treatment by all levels of official society is characterized by incompetence, ridiculous bureaucratic constraints, and insensitivity. From the doctors and nurses who declare him dead, to the cops that threaten him with three months confinement for having no name, to the people in the employment office, personnel office, and bank, M is treated as a cipher rather than a person. Kaurismäki clearly believes that society's supposed safety net is in shambles and that wealth and bureaucratization are terminally corrupting. Only in the genuine community of impoverished souls does modern man still approach his primordial state of grace.

Amnesia is a too often used dramatic device, mostly inaccurately and far more frequently than the circumstance occurs in real life. Kaurismäki has at least used the device in an unusual way. M's lack of identity becomes the mechanism by which Kaurismäki explores the nature of identity – that the identity of each one of us derives from our place within a community of people.

Production Values: Kaurismäki has created a film style that is exceptionally true to its roots in Finland. The Finnish people are notorious for the extremity of their reserve and stoicism. Kaurismäki captures that quality by insisting that his performers maintain a dry, deadpan demeanor and deliver their lines in something close to a monotone. They seem to be struggling against some innate resistance to communication. Facial expression is muted and physical movements and gestures likewise subdued. It is all very much contrary to the usual approach to dramatic performance but Kaurismäki's minimalism turns out to be highly effective in highlighting the smallest nuances of emotion. A blank expression or the simplest shrug acquires profound meaning. The minimalism also draws attention to Kaurismäki's quirky, absurdist brand of humor. Kaurismäki's style of comedy involves no one-liners, no slapstick, and no puns. It is made up of subtle, situational paradoxes relating to basics of human society – like the man that society cannot let get on with life because he has no identity. Or how comments carry different meanings for each of us. Nieminen is trying to size up his new friend, M, over beers, and noting his calloused hands, suggests, "You don't look like an educated man." M pulls his hands away, mildly insulted, and says, facetiously, "Thanks!" Nieminen, who apparently has no use for the pretensions of education, replies sincerely, "You're welcome."

Kaurismäki's approach to script ultimately results in characters that are authentic and compelling and with whom audiences can identify and develop compassion. Many of the characters are multidimensional or combine likable and not so likable qualities. The security guard, for example, attempts to be stern and dictatorial but cannot overcome his own innate kind-heartedness. Markku Peltola is a Kaurismäki regular, having appeared previously in Drifting Clouds (1996) and Juha (1999). Kati Outinen was so effective as Irma that she was awarded the Best Actress award from Cannes in 2002, a daring choice for such a deadpan performance. Outinen previously appeared in Kaurismäki's Drifting Clouds (1996). Kaurismäki's dog, Tahti, who plays the part of the Security Guard's dog in the film, was awarded an unofficial "Palm Dog" at Cannes. Kaurismäki used actual homeless people and an actual Salvation Army choir among the extras for the film, adding to the authenticity. Annikki Tahti, who served as the vocalist for the Salvation Army's renovated band in the film, has been a longtime Finnish pop music star. The soundtrack features a couple of her songs as well as other rock numbers and R&B. One selection, for example, is Blind Lemon Jefferson's rendition of "That Crawlin' Baby Blues."

Bottom-Line: The Man Without a Past won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, which is essentially the runner-up prize to the Palme d'Or. The National Society of Film Critics in the U.S. also selected it as the Best Foreign Film of the year. The film was also an Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Film. This is a heart-warming story with a social conscience, well worth a look. Neither the stars nor the sets are glamorous, which precisely captures the message that Kaurismäki has in mind. The Man Without a Past is in Finnish with English subtitles and has a running time of 97 minutes.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good Date Movie
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older