The Man Without a Past

TANG INA HINDI NAMAN YAN UNG MOVIE POTA

The Man Without a Past

Moviecut—The Man Without a Past

"Man Without A Past (Mies vailla menneisyyttä)" is one of the films bruited at the Cannes Fest that makes you wonder if those folks have ever seen old American movies. Like, duh, had they never seen a comedy about an accident victim with amnesia and how the character creates a new life? And that's not even including lousy movies like "The Majestic" or "Overboard." I'll throw in shell-shocked soldiers' stories for comparisons, too. One character even refers to such by offering to hit him on the head to help him regain his memory, like he's seen in the movies. And all those were a lot faster paced than this is as the jokes get very slowly made. Even the Salvation Army angle seems out of "Guys and Dolls." The original elements here are the victim's interaction with the Finnish social welfare state that resents a man with no identity and that the community he rejuvenates is homeless. The musical references are cute, but the Finnish covers get grating after awhile.

As a huge fan of foreign films, I am at a loss to understand how this film was nominated for Best Foreign Film. Academy screeners should be embarrassed that this film beat out movies like the terrific black comedy "The Sea" from Iceland, grim terrorism drama "Rachida" from Algeria and hilarious murder mystery "8 Women" from France, and many, many others. As everyone else has mentioned, the Man Without A Past is about a man who is severely beaten and left for dead at the beginning of the movies, and tries to pull his life back together after he can't remember who he is. First of all, this movie is advertised as a comedy. It is not a comedy. There are a few moments of comic relief (the dog named Hannibal), but this is not a funny movie, and if I hadn't read the reviews, I wouldn't have known that it was meant to be one. Anyway, The Man finds a place to stay. He meets an equally boring girl. He gets some new clothes. Zzzzzz....I never cared about any of the characters, except maybe the bank robber, though saying why would spoil things. The movie is not especially bad....the acting and directing is fine, the story is vaguely interesting at some points....but Best Foreign Film? Hell, no. I found myself looking at my watch quite a few times and was surprise to see how little time had gone by. I have seen four of Aki Kaurismaki's films, but I'm not sure why I bother because I haven't liked any of them. If you don't enjoy pretentious, verbally sparse cinema, don't see this movie. There are a thousand other better foreign films out there, including its four fellow competitors for Best Foreign Film 2003. This movie: 4/10.

A trailer seen at our local art-film house caused me to put this one on our "films-to-see" list. After a year's wait, we found it at a local video store, and began to view it with eager anticipation. For the first ten minutes, we were befuddled with the static camera-work and framing, the wooden immobile blocking, the stilted, terse dialogue (even so for Finns)... it just seemed all so amateurish. The film was gripping in its "differentness" - so much so that we decided that it must be a "style" piece. FASCINATING! (to paraphrase Spock rather precisely). After a night's sleep - the film's images firmly planted into my brain, I awake this morning recognizing that what I have seen is a comic-book-like "graphic novel" in motion-picture form. You can almost see the "balloons" surrounding the stilted dialogue. The casting is SUPERB in its selection of characteristic sharply-chiseled facial and body-types. No one here has to be an actor, although they certainly may be in real life. The players in this comedy are icons -- comic-book characters brought to living breathing life. The film proceeds static frame by static frame. You just have to see it to believe how well-done it is. I am no fan of graphic novels, and what little I know of them comes from proximity to and affection for my elder daughter - who is a Neil Gaiman (Sandman, et al.) aficionado. But to see a talking motion picture pick up the style is ... surprising and delightful - especially considering the expertise and elegance with which it has been done. I mean - considering the vast gulf between the two media presentation styles, limitations and facilities -- "WHY?" Who cares! See it. Enjoy it. Don't get turned off by its apparent comic-book visual straitness (to coin a term). It is - after all - a comedy with pasted-on graphic-novel seriousness. Watch - particularly - for the protagonist to arise from the "dead" and straighten his own broken nose beneath a complete headdress of bandaging before making his escape from... but, I tell too much. Proof - however - of this film's true comic nature. I have not read any other reviews of this film, so I do not know if my assumption of the filmmaker's intent and style is accurate. But, for me, the epiphany added a wonderful "AHA!" to the earlier puzzled enjoyment of initial viewing. I'm headed to our video system directly after finishing this to watch this film again - something I rarely do. See it! I award it a 9.5!

"The Man Without a Past" is a doggedly plodding, austere, wan, and uneventful exercise in minimalism about a man who is beaten by thugs, gets amnesia, and then, with nothing but sheer determination, reconstructs his life anew. In spite of its critical acclaim and Oscar nom, this laconic subtitled Finnish film has none of the things we ordinary folk go to movies to see and in retrospect I can't think of a single reason to recommend it. There are no beautiful vistas or great sets or costuming, no intrigue or mystery or romance (1.5 kisses), no bigger than life charismatic stars, no action or effects, no moral or message, no sex or nudity, and, as near as I can tell, no reason or purpose for existing. Having said all that, I did enjoy this flick for whatever that's worth. (B-)

Well i'm from Finland and we watched this film and i have to say that this was the worst artistic crap i have ever seen. The film was so bad, that you have to laugh because it was so awful. And the oscar nomination for this film was best joke i have heard this year. But if this pushes finnish films to outside world then go ahead. Probably for foreigners this film is so odd. That they think that is über cool and rate it as masterpiece. You can make better films than this is!

I consider myself to be a person with a better than average attention span. I'm not the type to complain if a film focuses on character and plot, and I have many DVDs in my collection where NOTHING blows up. Heck, I don't even mind staring out the window for hours on a long car ride. But I truly fought to stay awake through this pointless, plodding waste of time. Every shot and scene is played out as slowly as possible. I kept on expecting the film to rise to some kind of dramatic climax that would contrast with the silence and simplicity of the rest, but that climax never came. Perhaps the beating at the end was supposed to serve that purpose, but it played out with merely a whimper. I guess the director just wanted to be courteous to those who had been lulled to sleep. Honestly, I cannot imagine why this film has such a high rating. I don't think I have ever seen anything so lifeless. I admit I may be missing something, but I couldn't find any profound insights to the human condition here. There's no message, and that's the least you can have if your film isn't going to have a worthwhile story. The romance, if you could call it that, is undeveloped and bland. "The Man" is, at best, a visual sedative. As for the comedic value, I laughed a couple times. But only because it seemed so pointless. I realize it's supposed to be a deadpan comedy, but I just didn't get it (and I'm a Bob Newhart fan myself). The best I can do is give this film the benefit of the doubt and admit that maybe it "lost something in the translation," since I don't know Finnish and I watched this in subtitles. It would have had to lose A LOT though. Bottom Line: If you can't sleep, put it on. 2/10

Aki Kaurismaki's film is a metaphor about surviving the worst possible tragedy in which a man loses his mind because the brutal beating that is inflicted upon him, after which, he transforms himself into a much better person than he was prior to that moment in which fate plays the horrible trick on him. This is a film for acquired tastes of Kaurimaki's work. As a rule, his characters are people that are living outside society, as we know it, in a world of their own. Kaurismaki and his team always give us deadpan people who, at times, are hard to accept, but once the viewer falls for them, he is in for a good ride. Mr. Kaurismaki has found actors such as Markku Peltola who is the man without the past, and Kati Outinen as the Salvation Army worker who falls in love with him, not knowing what she is in for. Ms. Outinen is marvelous in her interpretation of Irma. She plays such stoic women in everything I have seen her in. She is a very good actress who tends to erase herself, but her presence is felt throughout the film. It is very interesting to see how many of the films that are nominated for the the Oscar as the best foreign film sometimes are not shown until after the awards are given, probably due to the fact of the narrow audiences they attract.