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THE MAN WITHOUT A PAST
Aki Kaurismäki, Finland, 2002
Saturday 24 January 2004 9pm-10.30pm; rpt Friday 30 January 11.30pm-1am
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Finnish writer-director Aki Kaurismäki knows very well that the biggest laughs in the audience can come from the straightest faces onscreen. Kaurismäki regular Markku Peltola (Drifting Clouds) has just that straight face and the actor's craggy, browbeaten features are used to brilliant effect in this tale of memory loss and self-discovery.
We've seen movies about amnesiacs before, but few characters have dealt as matter-of-factly with their infliction as Peltola's anti-hero, named only as M in the film's credits. Mercilessly pummeled by a bunch of muggers, M is pronounced dead in a hospital bed only to sit bolt upright minutes later. He strides back into the world with his head in bandages and his memory, well, a distant memory. Taken in by a benevolent family, he begins to make a new life for himself and after a shabby start lucks out with both a new job and a new girlfriend. But no one is truly without a past and M's will only stay buried for so long.
Rightly celebrated for his deadpan sense of humour (almost every line of dialogue is a winner here), Kaurismäki also knows that comedy speaks loudest when it tells the truth. The Man Without a Past talks honestly and directly to its audience - indeed, the characters frequently confront the camera head-on with inquisitive or plaintive expressions.
For all its quirkily incongruous, absurd touches the film is filled with genuine tenderness and a deep understanding of our search for self-dependence and for true love too. The early repartee shared between M and his Salvation Army amour gives the film some of its funniest scenes, with the pair improbably - bizarrely - recalling Bogart and Bacall, as directed by one of the kings of straight-faced comedy, Howard Hawks.
If earlier Kaurismäki classics such as I Hired a Contract Killer have passed you by then make sure you catch this Oscar-nominated comedy and "have a bit of fun with a Finn" as Basil Fawlty once advised.
Chris Wiegand
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Night on Earth (Jim Jarmusch, 1991)
