The Man Without a Past | Full Movie | Movies Anywhere

Name: The Man Without a Past
Released: 2002-11-6
Cast: Markku Peltola, Kati Outinen, Annikki Tähti

The Man Without a Past

PG-13
1h 37m
2002

98%

Nominated for an Academy Award® (2003 Best Foreign Language Film), this second installment of acclaimed Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki's Finland Trilogy is a comic drama that's both totally unique and completely irresistible. When a laborer (Markku Peltola) arrives in Helsinki in search of a job, he gets a brutal surprise beating in a local park by a group of thugs instead. He miraculously survives, but amnesia prevents him from remembering anything, including his name. Soon, a Salvation Army worker (2002 Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award Winner Kati Outinen) develops a shy interest in him, and a sweet, natural romance begins between the two. But just as the man's life begins to make sense again, his past suddenly returns to haunt him.

Director:

Aki Kaurismäki

Producer:

Aki Kaurismäki

Writer:

Aki Kaurismäki

Cast:

Markku Peltola, Kati Outinen, Annikki Tähti

Rotten Tomatoes® Score

TOMATOMETER®

98%

Critics Consensus: Kaurismäki delivers another droll comedy full of his trademark humor.

Reviews

A Good Movie To Watch

Farah Cheded

It’s not often a movie can so persuasively reassure us of people’s inherent goodness, but it’s even rarer still for it to be done with as much deceptive, charming simplicity as here.

M is a multilayered character. He is both an outcast and an artist, but he could be much more. He is no one and everyone, and Helsinki for him is nothing and everything.

With its rusty railroads and dingy metal canisters where the downtrodden dwell, [this film] finds color, surprise, and joy in the simplicity of struggling Helsinki outcasts.

...dourly delightful.

M's past... is almost an irrelevance, for Kaurismki's film is really concerned with the possibility of wiping the slate clean and replacing globalised, corporate living with the values of a utopian community of barter and free association.

June 25, 2017

FULL REVIEW