''The Man Without a Past'' ( fi, Mies vailla menneisyyttä) is a 2002 Finnish

comedy-drama film Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

produced, written, and directed by Aki Kaurismäki. Starring

Markku Peltola Markku Peltola (12 July 1956 – 31 December 2007) was a Finnish people, Finnish actor and musician. He was born and grew up in Helsinki. He was actively involved in founding and acting with the Telakka Theater in Tampere. Peltola is best kn ...

Kati Outinen Anna Katriina "Kati" Outinen (born 17 August 1961) is a Finnish actress who has often played leading female roles in Aki Kaurismäki's films. Outinen was born in Helsinki. Having studied under Jouko Turkka during his "reign" of drama studies i ...

and Juhani Niemelä, it is the second installment in Kaurismäki's ''Finland'' trilogy, the other two films being '' Drifting Clouds'' (1996) and '' Lights in the Dusk'' (2006). The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2002 (the only Finnish film so far) and won the Grand Prix at the

2002 Cannes Film Festival The 55th Cannes Film Festival started on 15 May and ran until 26 May 2002. The Palme d'Or went to the Polish-French-German-British co-produced film '' The Pianist'' directed by Roman Polanski. The festival opened with '' Hollywood Ending'', direct ...

Plot

The film begins with an unnamed man arriving by train to

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of . The city ...

. After falling asleep in Kaisaniemi Park, he is mugged and beaten by hoodlums and is left with severe head injuries, losing consciousness. He awakes and wanders back to the train station and collapses in its toilet. He awakes the second time in a hospital and finds that he has lost his memory. He starts his life from scratch, living in a shipping container, finding clothes with help from the Salvation Army and making friends with his poor neighbours.

Cast

as M *

as Irma *Juhani Niemelä as Nieminen *Kaija Pakarinen as Kaisa Nieminen * Sakari Kuosmanen as Anttila * Annikki Tähti as Manager of Flea Market *

Anneli Sauli Anneli is a female given name common in Finland, Sweden, Estonia and Norway. It originated as a variation of the name Anna. It is listed by the Finnish Population Register Centre as one of the top 10 most popular female given names ever. Not ...

as Bar Owner *

Elina Salo Aino Elina Salo (born 9 March 1936 in Sipoo, Finland) is a Finnish film, theatre and television actress who has also done work in radio as a voice actor in children’s programming. In her career that began in 1956, Salo has appeared in over 50 fi ...

as Dock Clerk * Outi Mäenpää as Bank Clerk *

Esko Nikkari Esko Nikkari (23 November 1938 – 17 December 2006) was a prolific Finnish actor who made more than 70 appearances on film and television. He was born in Lapua, and made his screen debut in 1974 in the movie ''Karvat''. Nikkari was a workhorse ...

as Bank Robber *Pertti Sveholm as Police Detective * Matti Wuori as himself (lawyer) *Aino Seppo as Ex-wife *Janne Hyytiäinen as Ovaskainen * Antti Reini as Electrician

Production

''The Man Without a Past'' was co-produced by the Finnish companies Sputnik and

YLE Yleisradio Oy ( Finnish, literally "General Radio Ltd." or "General Broadcast Ltd."; abbr. Yle ; sv, Rundradion Ab, italics=no), translated to English as the Finnish Broadcasting Company, is Finland's national public broadcasting company, found ...

, the German companies Bavaria Film Studios and Pandora Filmproduktion and the French company Pyramide Productions.

Critical reception

The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film has a rating of 98%, based on 99 critics, with an average rating of 7.98/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Kaurismäki delivers another droll comedy full of his trademark humor." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a score of 84 out of 100, based on 29 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Roger Ebert awarded the film three-and-a-half stars out of 4, saying he "felt a deep but indefinable contentment". Kirk Honeycutt of ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Hollywood film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade paper, and in 2010 switched to a weekly larg ...

'' said the film "contains not one false note. It is the work of an artist fully in control of his art." Barbara Scharres of the '' Chicago Reader'' said that Kaurismäki "perfects his trademark formula of deadpan humor and arctic circle pathos in this brilliantly ironic 2002 comedy."

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Man Without a Past, The 2002 films 2002 comedy-drama films Films directed by Aki Kaurismäki 2000s Finnish-language films The Salvation Army Films about amnesia Films set in Helsinki Best Foreign Film Guldbagge Award winners Finnish comedy-drama films Cannes Grand Prix winners