Mies vailla menneisyyttä (2002)

U.S. Title: The Man Without a Past.
Synopsis: A man is beaten up and becomes amnesic.
Appraisal: This is my second viewing. At the first viewing, nine months ago, I detested what looked to me a completely insipid movie. I decided to see it again because I was intrigued by the unanimously high regard in which it is held by everyone else. I have gotten more in tune with the film this time, but I still find it unsatisfactory. It struck me as a very peculiar parody of the American melodramas of the 30's and 40's. The use of music in drama is the origin of the word 'melodrama', by the way, and there is a lot of music in this film. It occasionally works well, attaining some kind of 'bare essentials', stripped of all that is accessory, style. But in the second half it loses itself in too many subplots and sequences that don't really add much to the whole; some of those sequences are so exaggeratedly static that they verge on self-parody.
Rating: 47