Popular winner of the Grand Prix and Best Actress
awards at Cannes, The Man without a Past is a sweet, amiable
comedy by Finland’s deadpan laureate of the unfortunate, Aki Kaurismaki
(Drifting Clouds). A man seeking work in the city is attacked
by muggers. He rises from his deathbed with no memory, searches for
his identity amongst the homeless and discovers, amongst other things,
the love of a good woman (Kati Outinen as a Salvation Army officer)
– and a supposedly ferocious dog. “Aki Kaurismaki’s
The Man without a Past is a sublime work, at once comic, melancholy,
meditative, liberating and philosophical. It contains not one false
note. It is the work of an artist fully in control of his art who wishes
to open up himself and what he believes is truly important in life to
an audience… The actors catch the spirit of Kaurismaki’s
richly textured script and wonderful deadpan dialogue, responding with
performances of subtle nuances and wry understatement. – Kirk
Honeycutt
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