The Man Without a Past

The Man Without a Past
by Aki Kaurismäki

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DVD Reviews of The Man Without a Past

DVD Review: Superb. Go see it.
Summary: 5 Stars

The film is carried first and foremost by the performance of its main actor, Markku Peltola, who has the kind of face that immediately engages the audience's attention and sympathy. His eyes themselves are very emotive; in the beginning of the film, it's their look of faraway sorrow, surely, that puts viewers so firmly on the character's side, and later on, the effectiveness of many scenes is derived just from the man's way of comporting himself, from the hilarious way he sits on the couch and regards the Salvation Army band, or from the serious way in which he listens to the ruined businessman without showing a trace of surprise at seeing him again, or from his very posture during the parting scene with Irma, and so on. Sometimes, his mannerisms inspire hysterical laughter, not because they are somehow inherently comical, but because his character is so appealing. In this film, laughter is the audience's way of supporting the character.

But there's no cloying sugariness here. If it wasn't for the great main characters, Kaurismaki's world would be very bleak indeed. The setting is a very severely economically depressed Finland, in which people plug up drafts with cloth, live in abandoned containers, have trouble finding food, and run the risk of being beaten to death by vicious thugs if they venture outside at night. The very first scene shows Peltola's character being the unlucky victim of such a beating; as a result, he completely loses his memory (hence the title of the movie), and ends up stumbling down to the containers and collapsing in the dirt, and the rest of the film has him rebuilding his life in this broken-down world. But despite the dangers and the poverty, there isn't a doomy or despairing air to it - the people who live in it smoke their cigarettes, nod, get by somehow, expect the worst, and don't make much of it. When Peltola's character assumes his sorrowful look, it's not the crushing sort of sorrow that might paralyze a human being, but a sober, dignified sort, where one simply wishes to reflect on things without letting them get the upper hand. Another character wears an old suit whenever he goes to "eat out," which means going to a soup kitchen, and regards his attire with unmistakable satisfaction. These people might not be happy, in the way we might think of that notion, but they don't really need to be. They don't directly fight life at every turn, but, like Erich Maria Remarque's characters, they will never surrender to it.

Then there's the soundtrack, which is really rather good. There's a smattering of classical music; a few Finnish songs that sound, in style, a lot like Russian romances from the early twentieth century; and lastly, that good time rock and roll, from a few songs by a completely unknown 60s band called The Renegades, to the terrific Finnish theme song, which, in the movie, is played by the Salvation Army band after they discover the charms of three electric guitar chords and some drums. That scene, complete with Finnish lyrics, turns out to be the high of the whole movie - since we've been cheering for the character for a long time by now, his triumph (and his it is, properly) is ours, and somehow, it is contained in the very way the band's singer sings, more than in the lyrics. Closing the soundtrack is the song played over the ending credits, also performed by that band, sung in English and just as good as the other one (and the guitar line sounds a lot like something from the album Laid by the band James, but that's another matter). The line "we'll be all right," in context, isn't just a line, it's the theme of the movie. People make their own happiness, ultimately, and "M," having lost literally everything, right down to his own name, created far more than he ever had to lose, out of the very detritus around him. And isn't that, after all, what it really means to take life on one's own terms? And if so, could there possibly be a better way to live?

My simple conclusion: If you want to see a movie that has affection for its characters, you need to see this one, since there hasn't been and won't be another one like it for a long while.

Description of The Man Without a Past