The Man Without a Past

Maybe it's something in the air. Or something in the water. Or maybe it's the fact that, in winter, the sun only shines for about five minutes. But if Aki Kaurismaki's The Man Without a Past is any indication, Helsinki is the bittersweet, silent-scream capital of the world. Albeit a comedy, the movie's so deadpan, so deceptively bleak, that you don't know whether to laugh or cry. A man (Markku Peltola) gets off a train, is mugged and beaten to within an inch of his life, escapes from the hospital but can't remember who he is or where he came from. Somehow, he winds up on the edge of town, where there's a community of lost-and-found souls inhabiting abandoned freight cars. The stuff of tragedy, right? Not to Kaurismaki, who turns this Scandinavian Cannery Row into an unemployed-worker's paradise. Even love blooms amidst the dust and grime. Sparsely furnished, The Man Without a Past proves once again that we don't need much to get along in this world, just each other.