Reviews (18)

TIMELESS FILM OF OUR TIME
A rough hewn, not quite middle aged man arrives by train in Helsinki, Finland, and while resting on a lonely public bench three street thugs intent on beating him to death steal his belongings. The man is left for dead by the gang who cover his face with a welder's mask, a clue to the victim's identity. In the hospital, an unsympathetic doctor and assistant try to revive the badly beaten man. But as the heart monitor flatlines (perhaps the only weak moment in the entire film), the doctor comments to his assistant before rushing off, "He's better off that way rather than living like a vegetable." The assistant dutifully covers up the "dead" man and she leaves.

Like the classic horror movie character the Mummy, his head and arm swaddled in bandages, the man suddenly rises from the "dead," and escapes to the desolate waterfront where he collapses next to the harbor. The man is rescued and taken in by the floatsam and jetsam of Finnish society who live in discarded steel cargo containers strewn along the waterfront. Thus begins this film by one of Finland's most distinguished producer-director Aki Kaurismaki. This is a poor but strangely light hearted world where a dinner invitation to "eat out" means standing in the Salvation Army soup line. It's a place where a local residentwho lives in a dumpster complains, "If the garbage strike continues, I'll have to go on a diet, or move."

The hero's Salvation Army love interest Irma, as played by Kati Outinen, is especially good. She portrays a repressed worker who falls in love with the amnesiac. Outinen won the Grand Jury Prize as Best Actress at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival for her stellar performance.

All of the funny scenes are done deadpan, melting together the comic and melancholic into a big hobo's stew that could puzzle some viewers. But if you can get used to the low-affect approach, you'll be charmed by the film's gentle, affectionate portrayals. There are many hugely funny scenes, such as the one in which the Man teaches the staid and joyless Salvation Army quartet to play rhythm 'n blues and rock-and-roll, complete with a huge, aging female singer. There are poignant scenes as well, treated with gentle whimsy by Kaurismäki.

In THE MAN WITHOUT A PAST, Kaurismaki has created for us a simple, mesmerizing story of a working stiff who stoically engages life's abrasions without complaint after having suffered total amnesia. The movie had won a best actress Jury Prize at the 2002 Cannes film festival and was nominated for but did not win a 2003 Academy Award. It should have won an Oscar.

See this film with the original Finnish sound track and English subtitles (which sometimes get illegibly washed out). The sounds and innuendoes are important. No doubt Kaurismaki's masterpiece will go on to become a classic much like those of Luis Bunuel, Ingemar Bergmann, and Akira Kurosawa.

Quiet, Quirky and a Little Sly
This Finnish film may not be for everyone. Though nominated in 2002 for an Oscar for best foreign film, I don't think it got much play here. It's a quiet movie about a guy who is beaten in a park in Helsinki right after getting off a train. The hospital thinks he's dead, but he staggers out, gradually recovers, and can't remember a thing. He meets a number of people, most of whom help him in some way or another. He meets a Salvation Army woman and a relationship developes.

It's hard to describe this movie. The dialoque is often funny, but delivered absolutely deadpan. There is no excitement, but a rich development of story and relationships through incidents that happen to the lead character or that he causes to happen. The two leads, Markku Peltoa and Kati Outinen, are adults and look it. There's no Hollywood handsomeness about either of them. The structure of the movie is a gem of economy. One scene ends and the film moves briskly on to the next scene. No extended, unnecessary character development. No superfluous dialoque. It may sound pompous, but this movie creates at the end a nice feeling of mature contentment.

The DVD of the film is crisp and strong; an excellent transfer. There are no significant extras.

True Love travels on a gravel road -- Beautiful!
In the impoverished slum area on the outskirts of a bigger city in Finland, a middle-aged working man is brutally attacked, robbed and left for dead by a pair of ruthless thugs. Taken to a hospital, the man is pronounced dead, but miraculously emerges from his trauma and literally walks away.

Suffering from amnesia, the man meets many well-meaning people who help him back on his feet. A scene where a waitress offers the penniless man a plate of food, saying "better you eat it than we throw it away", is reminiscent of the days of the Great Depression, where many able-bodied men would starve for lack of work.

The film spins beautifully to an unexpected, thus even more satisfying conclusion. A contender at many International Film Festivals, "The Man Without A Past" is testimony to the triumph of the human spirit. A rare gem among recent World Cinema. Highly recommended!*****

Time Travel Starved of Myths
I'm not from Finland myself, but I have to say that this movie does not realistically describe Finnish society. Finland is probably the most "modern" country in the world when it comes to instrumentalities. Instead it is an exaggurated picture of a country that for 50 years has been balancing between East and West and landed on the West. It could easily been the other way around. And 99 minutes on a boat lies the grim reminder.

Everyone I have spoken to about this film disagree with me, but I think this film is playing with time or epochs from 1945 until now. Back and forth, back and forth, like a bottle of Kosken being passed among friends.

On a deeper level, this is about Stalin and his refusal to let Finland accept any Marshall aid. This is history gone awry and dreams postponed. How can you keep your dignity when your neighbours are prospering while yourself is left outside the feast? How can you keep yourself sane between the birch and the wood? Give up! Be yourself and have the last word with style. Anyways, for me film is about entertainment, not for intricate BS analysis. This movie is highly entertaining.

It all starts with a brutal mugging
The beginning of this movie, a brutal and random mugging, makes you wonder if you really want to watch the rest of it. Stick around anyway. It's a good one.
Once the victim awakens from his coma, his memory has been erased. Still swathed in bandages, he skips from the hospital and wanders the outlying neighborhoods of Helsinki till he stumbles into a sort of hobo encampment. He makes a new life for himself in an abandoned railroad car or container box or some such thing - and then makes a friend of a Salvation Army worker, who helps him land a job with the organization. He plants a few potatoes, manages a small pick-up band, sticks to his job, and carefully moves forward with his odd life, still not knowing who he is. Then he happens upon a construction site and gravitates like a magnet to the welders. His obvious facility with the welding art leads to his eventual identity, but by then, who cares? You've become caught up in his successful attempts to get on with the business of living.
Great little sleeper of a movie. ... Read more

Amazon.com

The most compact and stylistically impressive of Aki Kaurismäki's perversely minimalist Finnish comedies, The Match Factory Girl stars his blond, blank-faced Garbo, Kati Outinen, as a downtrodden factory worker whose attempts to discover love and companionship are constantly thwarted by her possessive parents and a succession of cloddish, exploitative men. Kaurismäki's deadpan style--the carefully inexpressive acting, motionless camera, and rigidly geometrical compositions--avoids both sentimentality and sarcasm. Although the girl's plight is taken seriously, there is something in the extremity of the situations, and in the lovingly depicted hideousness of her Helsinki home life, that is irresistibly comic. Inspired by the Tiananmen Square uprising, the match factory girl resolves to take a revolutionary stand, arms herself with a packet of rat poison, and sets out for revenge. The video includes an equally hilarious music-video rendition of "Those Were the Days" by Kaurismäki's house band, the Leningrad Cowboys. --Dave Kehr ... Read more

Reviews (6)

bleak simplicity merged with sheer boredom
70 wasted minutes, and I believe that I have a large interest and tolerance in trying out diverse films. There are far more clever and intriguing films out there that plumb the depths of revenge and meager existences.

You got to be kidding...
Is this art? Excuse my ignorance but these were the worst 2 hours I have ever spent in my life. I just sit there waiting for the "movie" to start and it just ended. This movie is depressing, ugly, makes no sense whatsoever, pseudo art ..., good for some depressed Finish audience on a looonnnggg winter night. Have fun.

A Must-see!!!
This movie is great, for it shows the bitter truth of life in a witty style. It deals with a serious theme; by serious, I do not mean philosophical or sophisticated but just very deeply concerned with our everyday lives. One may feel a little depressed while seeing this movie due to the general dismal atmosphere of the film, and above all, due to the idea that human beings, even though there is no such thing as a soul mate, are doomed to chase this unreal object. But at the last sequence of the movie, he or she may smile at the way our protagonist, the match factory girl copes with the harsh reality. This last sequence is that witty and unexpected.
I relished this movie because it makes viewers realize that human lives are the course of yearning and searching for a fragile but beautiful illusion and that in this sense all human beings are the same. Anybody who sees this movie will feel sympathy for the factory girl, who suffers from the gap between the dream and the reality; feel pathos of the human lives' insignificance; and yet perceive the truth of men--even more keenly through the mordant wit and the lucid style.

Close to a perfect movie
At first you think that you are watching the most depressing film ever made, but then things go completely awry. Very funny.

BREAKING OUT
I think I counted only 13 or 14 spoken words in thismovie. There may have been fewer, I am not sure. Naturally, then, thisis a film you must watch to appreciate. It is remarkable what depthand nuance can be conveyed simply by looking at pictures on ascreen. A rather dreary tale is told here about a homely,wallflowerish girl who lives with her parents and works in a matchfactory. She gives her entire income to her family, but one day spotsa dress in the window of a shop and spends some of her earnings onit. She wears it to a club, where she is approached by a man for whatseems to be the first time in her life. ... Again, this is quite adreary film, but it was worthwhile to view it. Also it is a thoughtprovoking film in that it makes you evaluate the people who surroundyou... maybe perfect strangers that you see in your school orworkplace. They seem quiet, shy, unassuming, and the next day they aremurderers. In my high school years, actually, there were an alarmingnumber of people with whom I attended school who ended up beingconnected to murders in one way or another, and this film made merecall these sorts of feelings and thoughts, wondering about what goeson in people's heads to lead them to such rash acts. ... Read more