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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Man Without a Past, The
Sony Pictures Classics


8.1

based on 29 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 16 votes
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Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for some violence

Starring Markku Peltola, Kati Outinen, Annikki Tähti, Juhani Niemelä, Kaija Pakarinen, Sakari Kuosmanen, Esko Nikkari, and Outi Mäenpää

The second installation of Aki Kaurismäki's "Finland Trilogy," this touching and amusing film portrays a man who must start his life anew when he is brutally mugged and loses his memory. (Sony Pictures Classics)

GENRE(S):	Romance
WRITTEN BY:	Aki Kaurismäki
DIRECTED BY:	Aki Kaurismäki
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: October 7, 2003 Video: October 7, 2003 Theatrical: April 4, 2003
RUNNING TIME:	97 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Finland / Germany / France
LANGUAGE(S):	Finnish (with English subtitles)

Original title "Mies Vailla Menneisyyttä"; Nominated, Best Foreign Language Film, 75th Annual Academy Awards

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Christian Science Monitor 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.

100

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A powerful film made with minimal means, it's a story of poor people on the fringes of society, done without sentimentality or condescension but with wicked humor.

100

Chicago Reader Barbara Scharres

Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki perfects his trademark formula of deadpan humor and arctic circle pathos in this brilliantly ironic 2002 comedy.

100

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The message, if there must be one, of this marvelous, stubbornly personal movie is that there is a spark in every soul.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Offers up a subversive comic sensibility, one that somehow combines Buster Keaton's deadpan stare with Frank Capra's tireless optimism and filters them both through a black-ice Finnish point of view. Welcome to Aki World.

Variety David Rooney

Enormously satisfying, superbly crafted.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Everything has a Chaplinesque feeling, from the largely silent scenes to the highly visual, tragicomic situations...But The Man Without a Past is entirely free of the tramp's cloying sentimentality.

Time Richard Corliss

Droll, reticent, flawlessly filmed fable of generosity.

The New York Times 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.

Slate David Edelstein

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.

Chicago Sun-Times 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.

New York Post Megan Lehmann

Brilliantly idiosyncratic.

Philadelphia Inquirer 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.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Kaurismaki is a master at infusing his movies with apparently contradictory qualities. The best of them -- and The Man Without a Past is surely that -- are hard to describe precisely because they seem to exist, to balance precariously, in the tension between opposites.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Simply enjoy its witty and expertly crafted scenes, its controlled performances, its eccentric but mostly admirable characters, its succession of bleak but cozily Nordic panoramas and its surprisingly optimistic view of the world.

Portland Oregonian 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.

Film Threat Rich Cline

This is a very simple story, but it builds beautifully to an endearing and witty romance.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Quietly asserts its eccentric romanticism with an assured, matter-of-fact blend of humor and pathos.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

It's a gentle, surprising little movie whose rewards lie in what its characters don't say as much as in what they do.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

No weirder than Kaurismäki's previous efforts. Indeed, compared with “Leningrad Cowboys Go America,” this venture tells an alarmingly straight tale. [7 April 2003, p.96]

LA Weekly Andrew Mann

If Aki Kaurismaki were the Eagles, which he is not, The Man Without a Past might be considered a kind of "best of" album.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

It's a quiet little gag homage both to Boris Karloff and to the set up of shelf-loads of pulp novels and films noir. And Peltola, with his flat, serious face and damp, oil-black hair, happens to look, at times, like Richard Widmark and Kirk Douglas.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

A solid delight, the sort of cinematic concoction you might expect from a time-warp collaboration between Preston Sturges and Jim Jarmusch.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The Man Without a Past has the slenderness of a folk-tale -- also the clarity and charm.

ReelViews 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.

San Francisco Chronicle 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.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

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.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Warm and utterly beguiling fable.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

I suspect that, like the Coen brothers, David Lynch, and Wes Anderson -– our American masters of idiosyncrasy -– Kaurismäki has a limited appeal. Those who get him, really get him.

The average user rating for this movie is 8.1 (out of 10) based on 16 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Eric P. gave it a10:
A real jewel, unpretentious, no special effects but only deep human feelings from poor people on the margins who never complain of their fate. A tribute to humble people. Superb filming and acting. Moving.

Jani K. gave it a9:
This isn't Kaurismäki's best film but still very good. This is maybe the most mainstream of his works. Go see it if you liked the Big Lebowski, although this is much more melancholy and minimalistic.

Josh R. gave it a 4:
strange movie. doesn't leave you indifferent. rather - with a bitter taste. the story is OK. nothing particulary new here - a man loses his memory, but finds new love, new friends, new and better self...blah blah blah. but the acting is awful. it looks as if the actors are amatures. or maybe its some sort of artistic style.. i dunno. my 3 years old acts better...

Bill J. gave it a 9:
I found it poignant, sparse and very interesting. The action is in the characters. The write ups allude to it being "funny" or "humorous". IMO, it wasn't particularly funny but you might find humor in it if viewed as a satire.

Mark N. gave it a 10:
So beautiful you laugh when crying.

Chad S. gave it an 8:
What does a minimalist bank robbery look like? Go see "The Man Without a Past" and find out. Comedy is so broad these days, watching the three principal actors underplay an incident that's normally charged with danger is a pleasure. Ennui can be hysterical. If you liked(got) "The Royal Tennenbaums" & "Rushmore", Aki Kaurismaki is for you.

Steve G. gave it a 9:
Great movie from finish? director Aki Kaurismaki !

Man Without a Past, The Sony Pictures Classics

Man Without a Past, The
Sony Pictures Classics