The Film excerpted from a longer review found here

Buy at Amazon Canada The titular Man (Markku Peltola) of Aki Kaurismäki's absurdist sketch The Man Without a Past appears to be some sort of metalworker who, on a trip to the big city, is brutally beaten, robbed, and left for dead. Flatlining for a while, The Man stumbles out of the hospital and into a subsistence level of existence in a broken-down trailer, a stray flea-bitten dog his only companion until he catches the eye of Irma (Kati Outinen), a charity worker intrigued by his quiet good nature and work ethic. Robbed of name and the first part of his life, The Man is a Kafka or Beckett protagonist--a hero forced to mine his essential humanity for courage and clues to existential verities universal and essential. Recalling Socrates' "an unexamined life is not worth living," The Man Without a Past is endlessly hopeful about the ability for man to persevere in a capricious world, a gentle fable that finds grace amongst society's victims. Kaurismäki trusts his cast to long rhythmic takes and excessively subtle moments of humour, and The Man Without a Past is packed with lasting images that speak to the heart of the travails of the human condition and, amazingly, to the strength to persevere that is mankind's gift and curse. Kaurismäki's picture is something of a minor classic that proves the dictum that whispering breeds listeners.-Walter Chaw

The DVD
Seville's Canadian import DVD of The Man Without a Past presents this lovely movie in a rich 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. I suspect the disc was mastered using the same elements as Columbia Tri-Star's US release, for it bears the markings of a typical Sony offering: rich colours, sleek contrast, and just a bit too much edge-enhancement, giving Timo Salminen's naturalistic cinematography an electronically-processed character. Still, it's far from bothersome, and the Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo mix handles the eclectic soundtrack selections like a well-mastered CD. I can't speak for the intelligibility of dialogue because it's in Finnish, but voices certainly aren't inaudible. An optional French dub and trailers for The Man Without a Past, Talk to Her, I Am Dina, and Raising Victor Vargas round out the disc.-Bill Chambers

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