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Finland, Germany, France · 2002
Rated PG-13 · 1h 37m
Director Aki Kaurismäki
Starring Markku Peltola, Kati Outinen, Juhani Niemelä, Kaija Pakarinen
Genre Comedy, Drama, Romance
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A man arrives in Helsinki and gets beaten up so severely he develops amnesia. Unable to remember his name or anything from his past life, he cannot get a job or an apartment, so he begins living on the outskirts of the city and slowly eking out new kind of life there.
We hate to say it, but we can't find anywhere to view this film.
The New York Times by Dana Stevens
Like the great films of the 1930's and early 40's, it is at once artful and unpretentious, sophisticated and completely accessible, sure of its own authority and generous toward characters and audience alike -- a movie whose intended public is the human race.
The revered Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki has hit on a way to give you grim social realism and movie-ish sentimentality in one fell swoop.
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
Kaurismaki is Finland's greatest filmmaker, and never has he more artfully balanced his patented blend of deadpan humor, low-key melodrama, and toe-tapping music.
San Francisco Chronicle by Edward Guthmann
A master of minimalism, Finland's Aki Kaurismaki makes films that are so dry, so delicately ironic that they seem on the verge of crumbling in front of us -- but they never do.
This may not be Kaurismäki's masterpiece, but it is a movie of sustained stylistic integrity -- and it has the power to make you laugh.
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
The Man Without a Past is a modern fairy tale. It certainly is divorced from reality. Despite this -– or perhaps because of it -– it's a satisfying motion picture.
Warm and utterly beguiling fable.
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
At the end of The Man Without a Past, I felt a deep but indefinable contentment. I'd seen a comedy that found its humor in the paradoxes of existence, in the way that things may work out strangely, but they do work out.
Portland Oregonian by Shawn Levy
Something in the simplicity of its vision gives The Man Without a Past a dimension of heroic grandeur -- and that effect, too, seems to tickle Kaurismaki's funny bone.
Philadelphia Inquirer by Steven Rea
A dour-faced but sublime comedy about the kindness of strangers -- and about the strangeness of people who find themselves in oddball moments of grace.
Nikkander, a garbageman, finds himself lost and lonely after his friend and co-worker dies of a sudden heart attack.
A masterpiece of modern horror.
Perversion --- at its absolute best.
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