The Man Without a Past

A delirious mixture of black comedy, film noir and love story, from acclaimed Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki. Rapturously received 'The Man Without a Past' triumphed at the 2002 Cannes film festival, carrying off multiple awards including Best Actress and the Grand Jury Prize. Markku Peltola plays 'M', who arrives in Helsinki only to be viciously set upon by thugs and pronounced dead by medics. By some miracle he survives but with no memory of his past or his identity. Rebuilding his life from scratch, M acquires a melancholy dog (a recurring Kaurismäki motif) named Hannibal and falls in love with a Salvation Army soup kitchen volunteer (the muse-like Kati Outinen). But the past inevitably catches up with him, forcing him to confront his future.