A film of infinite poetry, which improves with each viewing. This kind of humor served with a straight face really hits home. Ari Kaurismäki's soundtracks are such an inspiration that I started learning Finnish to understand them better.

Wow! Rotten Tomatoes with the deep cut. Also, like, I'm pretty sure this man had a past. Just sayin's all. This movie is somehow so serious it's hilarious. Sort of like Finland in general. Check out my longer review: https://youtu.be/6bGH8Qhm-Q8?si=I5VC5MQnQdUtIvho

The film talks about a philosophy that life has nothing to do with our memories. Life has life of its own. That being said, the subtle use of Rock n Roll as a metaphor was the masterstroke imho. Must watch and absolutely brilliant.

This movie should go down as once of the greatest films made. I’m obsessed with this movie

There's over-acting, but there's also under-acting like in this film. It still achieves to transmit the characters' feelings to the viewer, great film.

One of my favorite Aki Kaurismaki films. All the elements, and even his muse present here, but this one has something special

The first Kaurismäki film that I watched. Mesmerising, magical storytelling. Have watched the movie countless times and each time a new nuance emerged.

Well-written and well-performed on realistically pondering what would it be like if we lost our memorable selves and it becomes shared diegetic knowledge when unfolding the character with satisfying turns, even if it has to involve few disruptive connections that lingers between mysterious and unrelatable apart from the prompt's aforementioned effect. (B+)

As with all of his films, Aki Kaurismaki's The Man Without a Past is minimalism at its best. After taking a severe beating and being pronounced dead, the nameless protagonist rises from his hospital bed and embarks on a new life with no memory of his past. The humor is droll, the performances are generally emotionless, the dialogue is laconic and the pace is unhurried. And, like all of Kaurismaki's works, it is wildly successful, as improbable as that may sound. Among other things, it deals with the issue of identity – is it determined by our past or by how those in the present perceive us? Granted, it's not for all tastes, but, for those willing to go along for the ride, it is a joy to watch.

Helsinkians will love this film a lot. As usual, the endearing humour in Kaurismäki's style is much appreciated.

Funny film, better if your have an understanding of the Finnish culture. The film is also very touching.

I remember I did not like "The Man Without a Past". I have seen this in a cine club a few years ago, we were three friends, none of us had never heard about Kaurismäki before, and I remember we were quite laughing at the unexpressive actors, moving like zombie, rigid, so strange ... wondering if this was on purpose, or if the actors were unable to play. Now I know this is the style of Kaurismaki: a style that I do not like very much, but then the effect was quite comic, and I was not alone, most people in the theater was laughing on supposedly dramatic scenes, and, at the end, my two fellows, quite amused too, knowing that I had visited Finland asked me if Helsinky is the junkyard that it is shown in this movie. Not at all, for sure. Maybe, if I would try to see this again, I could appreciate a little bit more, but I have so many good movies to see yet, and so little time. And Kaurismaki is not my cup of tea.

Una historia simple sobre unos personajes marginales contada al peculiar estilo de Aki Kaurismaki, una pelicula inclasificable ahora una de mis favoritas.

You can start it all over again even if all your past is erased out. Only you need some kindness of your fellow humans. The story of the film is deceptively simple. Characters are few. You have to love the absurd protagonist through all his predicament, you have to feel for him. There is a very subtle sense of humor which is so much different from the present day Hollywood-style coarse humor. It is a brilliant and unique art-work from the Finnish director, I have to watch the other two films of the trilogy also.

Slow and dry, this Finland-set dramedy and its amnesiac protagonist seem to be searching for meaning along with the audience. It's a challenging watch, especially for those who know little about the local culture, but there remain moments of universal humor, warmth, and melancholy that overpower Kaurismaki's alienating idiosyncrasies.

Nice movie to watch during lunch, but if I had watched at night I would have probably fallen asleep. A bit too slow and a bit too much smoke... Anyway, the whole concept of the movie and every single character of the movie is very well built.

Naturalisic picture about lost past and bulding new future. Dry, full of dirt, minimalistic with droll acting but restoring faith in humanity.

One of the best I have seen in recent times..just felt so much watching this, like reading a great novel. Masterpiece!

This was my first time seeing a movie by the Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismaki, but I think I can see why he's relatively popular (as Finnish filmmakers go, anyway). This is an extremely wry, deadpan comedy - so poker-faced that many people might not even notice it's a comedy. It's a small-scale film about sad people in a sad place, but it's somehow very funny. The story is pretty simple: we see a man (Markku Peltola) get off the train somewhere and go sit on a bench. Then he is abruptly beaten nearly to death with a baseball bat by some random thugs. He's declared dead at the hospital, but then gets up and walks out. He has no memory whatsoever of who he is, but somehow ends up moving into the local outcast community, nearly all of whom live in storage containers by the shore. He strikes up a relationship with a lonely Salvation Army worker (Kati Outinen) who's almost as bad off as he is. And that's pretty much the movie. Like I said, everything about this movie is utterly deadpan, especially the performances. Peltola's performance is interesting - you can't really say the character is especially likable and sympathetic, but then that's because he can't remember what kind of a person he was. He's neither friendly nor mean because he can't remember which he is supposed to be. So he's just kind of there, existing. Outinen is also quite good as Irma, the Salvation Army worker. All of the characters speak and act in very flattened, almost depressed ways - they're kind of like the characters in a Wes Anderson movie, only more so. The camerawork just tends to regard them neutrally. Like I said, the movie is indeed a comedy. The characters keep finding themselves in ridiculous situations, but since they don't react in the way we've been trained to expect characters to react to such things, the humor of it all might slip by some viewers. It's a minimalist film that doesn't harp on its own minimalism. There's also a genuinely strange beauty to the film's locations. It feels like an "acquired taste" sort of thing, so I can't guarantee you'd like it. But I did.

Utterly charming. In a similar vein to Le Havre.