The Man Without A Past - Pessimism On The Inside, Optimism On The Outside
Quick Thoughts: The Man Without A Past (Mies Vailla Menneisyyttä, 2002)
Made by Aki Kaurismäki, this is the Finnish film of the series.
The Man Without A Past is a tremendous film and one of the best examples of a mechanical deadpan film that does more than entertain; it fits thus among the likes of Lanthimos' Dogtooth and Andersson's You, The Living.
As frankly as possibly, this film explores the underclass in Helsinki through a quasi-allegory. In such, we see a man literally beaten into alienation and poverty by characterless nihilists before being neglected by official structures of society (hospitals, police, etc.). This motif of 'society', an abstract idea for a faceless mechanism that represents a country, being useless remains present as our man without a past calmly, undramatically and stoically tries to make his life better. In doing so, he encounters other people who, like him, fall into this abstract underclass that are forgotten by most of society, save a few generous people.
From here, the structure of the movie interacts with its comedic form: though life keeps beating our character down, there is no drama; he just gets on with things. This represents our group of nobodies as outside of all expectations of the average person. We would expect them to be miserable animals, fighting and clawing for whatever life they can - and probably out of anxiety and our not knowing how we could exist without a home, food and some degree of structure in our lives. Nonetheless, in subverting our projections of anxiety, The Man Without A Past is a strange celebration of the human spirit and its ability to understand life as suffering and act with some degree of optimism despite an internalised pessimism.
When society pulls our man without a past back into its clutches before rejecting him, an allegorical tone re-emerges as our nihilists attempt to kick him as he is down. However, because he makes himself apart of community, he is saved. And thus this film is a simple one; it is about sticking with those like you and with those that you can help as to confront the miseries of the world with a strange hop in your step and an odd smile on your face.
The Man Without A Past is then a film that masterfully brings you into a conceptual and sensory world of bizarreness that eventually makes perfect sense. For this, I cannot recommend this film more.
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Ugetsu Monogatari - The Ghost Of The Female Archetype
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Every Year In Film #31 - The Abyss
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**MINIMAL SPOILERS THROUGHOUT**
The Man Without A Past is a tremendous film and one of the best examples of a mechanical deadpan film that does more than entertain; it fits thus among the likes of Lanthimos' Dogtooth and Andersson's You, The Living.
As frankly as possibly, this film explores the underclass in Helsinki through a quasi-allegory. In such, we see a man literally beaten into alienation and poverty by characterless nihilists before being neglected by official structures of society (hospitals, police, etc.). This motif of 'society', an abstract idea for a faceless mechanism that represents a country, being useless remains present as our man without a past calmly, undramatically and stoically tries to make his life better. In doing so, he encounters other people who, like him, fall into this abstract underclass that are forgotten by most of society, save a few generous people.
From here, the structure of the movie interacts with its comedic form: though life keeps beating our character down, there is no drama; he just gets on with things. This represents our group of nobodies as outside of all expectations of the average person. We would expect them to be miserable animals, fighting and clawing for whatever life they can - and probably out of anxiety and our not knowing how we could exist without a home, food and some degree of structure in our lives. Nonetheless, in subverting our projections of anxiety, The Man Without A Past is a strange celebration of the human spirit and its ability to understand life as suffering and act with some degree of optimism despite an internalised pessimism.
When society pulls our man without a past back into its clutches before rejecting him, an allegorical tone re-emerges as our nihilists attempt to kick him as he is down. However, because he makes himself apart of community, he is saved. And thus this film is a simple one; it is about sticking with those like you and with those that you can help as to confront the miseries of the world with a strange hop in your step and an odd smile on your face.
The Man Without A Past is then a film that masterfully brings you into a conceptual and sensory world of bizarreness that eventually makes perfect sense. For this, I cannot recommend this film more.
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Previous post:
Ugetsu Monogatari - The Ghost Of The Female Archetype
Next post:
Every Year In Film #31 - The Abyss
More from me:
amazon.com/author/danielslack
