The Man Without a Past

The film begins with an unnamed man arriving by train to Helsinki. After falling asleep in Kaisaniemi Park, he is mugged and beaten by hoodlums and is left with severe head injuries, losing consciousness. He awakes and wanders back to the train station and collapses in its toilet. He awakes the second time in a hospital and finds that he has lost his memory. He starts his life from scratch, living in a shipping container, finding clothes with help from the Salvation Army and making friends with his poor neighbours.

• Markku Peltola as M
• Kati Outinen as Irma
• Juhani Niemelä as Nieminen
• Kaija Pakarinen as Kaisa Nieminen
• Sakari Kuosmanen as Anttila
• Annikki Tähti as Manager of Flea Market
• Anneli Sauli as Bar Owner
• Elina Salo as Dock Clerk
• Outi Mäenpää as Bank Clerk
• Esko Nikkari as Bank Robber
• Pertti Sveholm as Police Detective
• Matti Wuori as himself (lawyer)
• Aino Seppo as Ex-wife
• Janne Hyytiäinen as Ovaskainen
• Antti Reini as Electrician

The Man Without a Past was co-produced by the Finnish companies Sputnik and YLE, the German companies Bavaria Film Studios and Pandora Filmproduktion and the French company Pyramide Productions.

The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 98%, based on 99 critics, with an average rating of 7.98/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Kaurismäki delivers another droll comedy full of his trademark humor."[3] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 84 out of 100, based on 29 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[4] Roger Ebert awarded the film three-and-a-half stars out of 4, saying he "felt a deep but indefinable contentment".[5] Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter said the film "contains not one false note. It is the work of an artist fully in control of his art."[6] Barbara Scharres of the Chicago Reader said that Kaurismäki "perfects his trademark formula of deadpan humor and arctic circle pathos in this brilliantly ironic 2002 comedy."[7]

• The Man Without a Past at IMDb
• The Man Without a Past at AllMovie
• The Man Without a Past at Box Office Mojo
• The Man Without a Past at the British Board of Film Classification
• The Man Without a Past at the British Film Institute
• The Man Without a Past at Elonet (in Finnish)
• The Man Without a Past at Metacritic
• The Man Without a Past at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Man Without a Past at the Swedish Film Institute Database