Dir. Aki Kaurismaki, 2002, Finland/Germany/France, 97 mins, subtitles Cast: Markku Peltola, Kati Outinen, Juhani Niemela, Kaija Pakarinen What deceptively appears to be a violent thriller, beginning as it does with a man (Markku Peltola) being brutally beaten by a gang of thugs, soon announces itself as a quirky, feelgood comedy that delights in re-examining the mundane and deciding we should be grateful for the little things. The victim suddenly awakes from a coma and sits up in his hospital bed having only just been pronounced dead. Swathed in bandages, he fittingly resembles the Invisible Man, a screen character whose only means of proving his existence was to wrap himself in white rags. Here, the nameless protagonist is equally invisible in that he has no memory of his life prior to the attack and the shedding of his hospital bandages sees him reborn into a new existence of a life uncluttered by past dismeanours or regrets. However, this rebirth is not an earth shattering experience. The man does not set about reinventing his life; rather life seems to unobtrusively carry him along. He moves into a trailer park where his neighbours express their genuine sense of good fortune in knowing that they will be able to apply for a council flat in a year or two. The plot is minimal and the narrative regularly sets the scene for a conflict only to be confounded by one character acquiescing to the other, giving the sense that life is only as difficult as we make it. This is displayed best when the man's former wife recognises him and reappears to tell him who he was. She lives now with another man, and her two loves feel obliged to fight merely because society demands that rival lovers should. However, they eschew traditional expectations and find that violence isn't necessary. All three happily return to their lives - the man to his new one rather than the one he previously had. There is the odd sombre moment, and the cast give beautifully muted, underplayed, deadpan performances, but overall Kaurismaki has created a very sweet little film that celebrates fate and the mundane facets of life that we so take for granted. The director reinforces this by showing us snatches of beauty - colourful flowerpots beside dusty rubbish bins - against the grime, and the film itself utilises rich, saturated colours. Kati Outinen won best actress at Cannes for her role as a surprisingly sweet Salvation Army officer, the object of the man's affections and an appropriately unusual love interest. The final delight is the wonderfully diegetic soundtrack, with music emanating from radios, record players, live performances, drenching the film with music in the same way music permeates our everyday lives but we are too deaf to hear and appreciate. The Man Without A Past doesn't force us to re-examine our own life but instead allows us to notice it and be glad. Jean Lynch |
