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| The Man Without a Past | |||||||
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A micro-society of the Finnish past... (Rating: 5.00) Review : A man arrives to Helsinki by train and he stops by a park in order to get some rest, but he is attacked by three thugs that leave him for dead. He is brought to a hospital where he is pronounced dead, but he struggles and returns to life. He leaves the hospital, but passes out again and when he wakes up he suffers from amnesia. He finds himself powerless in his search for housing and a job, since he cannot remember his name or past. As an outcast he moves into a large metal container by the sea outside Helsinki in order to get back on his feet. Man Without a Past is Kaurismäki's second installment in a Finnish trilogy and it displays the strong will and struggle of the Finnish people, which is also known as "Sisu". It can also symbolize the hundreds of years when Finland was occupied by foreign powers such as Russia, Sweden, and Germany. These three foreign powers can be represented as the three thugs in the film. In the end, Man Without a Past is a warm film that offers a wonderful cinematic experience. It all starts with a brutal mugging (Rating: 4.00) Review : The beginning of this movie, a brutal and random mugging, makes you wonder if you really want to watch the rest of it. Stick around anyway. It's a good one. Once the victim awakens from his coma, his memory has been erased. Still swathed in bandages, he skips from the hospital and wanders the outlying neighborhoods of Helsinki till he stumbles into a sort of hobo encampment. He makes a new life for himself in an abandoned railroad car or container box or some such thing - and then makes a friend of a Salvation Army worker, who helps him land a job with the organization. He plants a few potatoes, manages a small pick-up band, sticks to his job, and carefully moves forward with his odd life, still not knowing who he is. Then he happens upon a construction site and gravitates like a magnet to the welders. His obvious facility with the welding art leads to his eventual identity, but by then, who cares? You've become caught up in his successful attempts to get on with the business of living. Great little sleeper of a movie. Time Travel Starved of Myths (Rating: 5.00) Review : I'm not from Finland myself, but I have to say that this movie does not realistically describe Finnish society. Finland is probably the most "modern" country in the world when it comes to instrumentalities. Instead it is an exaggurated picture of a country that for 50 years has been balancing between East and West and landed on the West. It could easily been the other way around. And 99 minutes on a boat lies the grim reminder. Everyone I have spoken to about this film disagree with me, but I think this film is playing with time or epochs from 1945 until now. Back and forth, back and forth, like a bottle of Kosken being passed among friends. On a deeper level, this is about Stalin and his refusal to let Finland accept any Marshall aid. This is history gone awry and dreams postponed. How can you keep your dignity when your neighbours are prospering while yourself is left outside the feast? How can you keep yourself sane between the birch and the wood? Give up! Be yourself and have the last word with style. Anyways, for me film is about entertainment, not for intricate BS analysis. This movie is highly entertaining. It's hard to describe this movie. The dialoque is often funny, but delivered absolutely deadpan. There is no excitement, but a rich development of story and relationships through incidents that happen to the lead character or that he causes to happen. The two leads, Markku Peltoa and Kati Outinen, are adults and look it. There's no Hollywood handsomeness about either of them. The structure of the movie is a gem of economy. One scene ends and the film moves briskly on to the next scene. No extended, unnecessary character development. No superfluous dialoque. It may sound pompous, but this movie creates at the end a nice feeling of mature contentment. The DVD of the film is crisp and strong; an excellent transfer. There are no significant extras. Suffering from amnesia, the man meets many well-meaning people who help him back on his feet. A scene where a waitress offers the penniless man a plate of food, saying "better you eat it than we throw it away", is reminiscent of the days of the Great Depression, where many able-bodied men would starve for lack of work. The film spins beautifully to an unexpected, thus even more satisfying conclusion. A contender at many International Film Festivals, "The Man Without A Past" is testimony to the triumph of the human spirit. A rare gem among recent World Cinema. Highly recommended!***** |
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