DVDs in Review

The Man Without a Past

Title: The Man Without a Past

Release date: September 21 2009

Certificate: 12

Format: DVD

DVD RRP: £12.99

Rating: 4/5

Aki Kaurismaki's latest film is, like a lot of his others, an understated little gem that's hard to put down why it's so appealing. The plot is minimal, the acting styles are stiffly quirky and the visual style is somewhat calmly subdued - there is little that jumps out, but somehow it makes for compulsive watching.

'The Man Without a Past' refers to a man (Markku Peltola) who we meet on his way to Helsinki. He's travelling on a train, gets off and is promptly mugged and viciously beaten. It's a miracle that he's alive, but he has lost all of his memory.

Stumbling out of the hospital, he quickly finds that without identification it's very hard to get a proper job or suitable accommodation so he ends up on the outskirts of the city living in a container box alongside other poverty stricken men and women, soup queues and crooked cops.

There he makes his own future, slowly bonding with those around while his past is all but forgotten about. He finds a new girlfriend and job, settling down, making poverty into his own limited paradise before brief memories start coming back and he gets into trouble.

The great thing about 'The Man Without a Past' is that by the time his memories do come back, he has already plugged the gap with fresh experiences. He doesn't need his past, he's just started a new life but when the time comes he will have to choose.

Having a lead character with a limited back-story and making him something of an introvert somehow helps the audience relate because they can fill in the story themselves. It's an intensely personal work, and one which is subtle and tenderly directed. It's easy to see why it was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.