Europe Endless - Scandinavia: The Man Without A Past (Dir Aki Kaurismäki 1h36m, 2002)

A familiar stop on our tour of Europe now, as we arrive in Finland: we have already considered its recent growth commercially and critically, with Compartment No. 6 (2021), the horror movie/coming of age tale, Hatching and the gloriously B-Movie violence of Sisu (both 2022). This is where Finnish cinema is; yet its history stretches back to before its independence, the first film being shown in the country a year after the medium's creation in 1896, the first film being made in Finland in 1904 (Novelty from Helsinki: School youth at break) and its first feature in 1907 (The Moonshiners (Salaviinanpolttajat)). 

Halted by the Russian government, Finland would return after independence from Soviet Russia to film-making in the 1920s, adopt sound in the 1930s, and whilst the films of the 1940s and 50s would be decidedly nationalistic and extol its nature and landscapes alongside shallow morality tales, it would also be a film industry dominated by Suomen Filmiteollisuus (SF). By the 1970s, SF would be bankrupt, Finnish cinema would be struggling against the arrival of television, and whilst Finnish cinemas would play host to Uuno Turhapuro and its nineteen sequels, the last coming in 2004, it would not be until the arrival of a new generation of talent that fortunes would change, and with it a new wave in Finnish cinema. 

Headed by the Kaurismäki brothers, Mika and Aki, together with filmmakers such as Markku Lehmuskallio and Pirjo Honkasalo, this group would lead a resurgence in a tired national cinema. With thirty directorial debuts across the decade, from this cohort and beyond, headed by The Worthless (1982), written by Aki and directed by Mika, so the Kaurismäki era, began. It is to Aki's career that we now turn; like my good self, beginning as a critic, Aki's film career ranges from the comic, Hamlet Goes Business (1987) and his breakthrough, Leningrad Cowboys go America (1989), to the dramatic, Ariel (1988) and The Match Factory Girl (1990). It is with his "Finland" trilogy, Drifting Clouds, (1996), today's film, 2002's The Man Without A Past and Lights in the Dusk (2006) that he became well known outside of Scandinavia. 

Like its companions, The Man Without a Past is a quintessentially Kaurismäkian mix of dry comedy, drama, and a surprising timelessness - there are multiple sequences, via his script, and Timo Salminen (son of Finnish film maker, Ville Salminen)'s cinematography, where one becomes unstuck from the decades, where this, but for the style of vehicles and some background details, could be Helsinki, where almost every Kaurismäki film has been set, at any point since the 1950s. The static style, often holding a shot for a number of minutes, calls to mind Ozu, shot through with a technicolour sensibility. This subdued, naturalistic style thus introduces us to the nameless, and soon to be memoryless, M (Markku Peltola), who arrives in Helsinki, is set upon by a trio of local thugs, and promptly assaulted; left for dead, and soon finding himself by a homeless village built from shipping containers, and is nursed back to health.

Soon searching for work, and unable to get a job from his shabby appearance, and his lack of identity(!), he is taken in by the Finnish Salvation Army, soon striking up a faltering but still endearing relationship with Irma (Kati Outinen), with whom he shares an unexpected affinity for early rock and roll -many of Kaurismäki's films share the director's love for music, and many of his actors also moonlight as musicians. From here, M balances his everyday life, his relationship with Irma, his friendships with the other members of the homeless community, and an unexpected brush with the law, which begins to unpick the question of his identity, as Kaurismäki weaves another tale of Helsinki and its people. This is a film where M loses his identity and finds a better version of himself.

There is, as with much of the director's films, this finely crafted balance, something that to someone who has never stepped foot in the country itself, feels quintessentially Finnish. On the one hand, there is the often sweet, without being saccharine, depiction of the Finns - there are a number of sequences where Kaurismäki's care for the working class, for the small man, for, in this case, the homeless of Helsinki is evident, where the film is gentle to M, where people take pity on him. Peltola makes us empathise for M, even discounting the scenes where he is left for dead, a hangdog sensibility, multiple sequences showing him bedraggled or soaked through. M is a man who has been beaten down by the world, and who we are eager to see succeed, but he is just one of several characters who the narrative takes either pity on, or where M himself improves their lives. 

Yet, Kaurismäki's films are not overcome with sentiment, and The Man Without A Past is no exception; the film is extremely funny and dryly comic in a quintessentially Scandinavian way; there is the friendship between M and his landlord, the tough looking but ultimately kind Anttila (Sakari Kuosmanen), who gets the lion's share of dead-pan lines, and whose dog Hannibal, is far from the fearsome reputation he is preceded by, whilst M's world-weariness is underpinned by his self-deprecating humour, especially in scenes with Irma. Kaurismäki keeps both of these elements in balance, such that the the film is neither overcome by sentiment nor by cynicism, but remains decidedly Finnish, and of course, quintessentially Kaurismäki.

The Man Without A Past is at turns a depiction of a man working to reclaim his life, a dry comedy, a melodrama, shot like a film from decades past, but above all it is a film that could only have come from Finland and one of its greatest film-makers.

Rating; Must See

The Man Without A Past is available on DVD from Optimum Home Entertainment and on streaming from Mubi.

Next week, and indeed next month, a Cold War parable in The Lives of Others, as we reach Germany, before we head to the Low Countries and France.