by MATTHEW HAYS

The Man Without a Past is one of those completely unique films. Profound, in a really odd way, without ever trying to be. Light and funny but never stupid. It's an uncanny little movie, entirely uncompromising and full of surprising, often screwy small moments that add up to brilliant whole.

Director Aki Kaurismäki expects us to swallow a lot with his script's central conceit. It's one of those amnesiac deals, right out of Gilligan's Island or Bewitched. Our hero, played with wicked aplomb by Markku Peltola, is a metal worker who is brutally beaten and left for dead by thieves. His face is mangled, his brain damaged, and when he comes to, on a beach he stumbles onto, he recalls nothing (except of course how to speak). Left with the core essence of his basically decent character, he then sets about rebuilding his life, bit by bit. He rents a rather nasty room; he gets a rather nasty job; but amid it all, finds a certain humble dignity.

This movie was one of the unexpected pleasures of the Toronto International Film Festival. I walked into it knowing very little about it, and came out overwhelmed by how fresh, unassuming and perfect it was, from the minimalist script (the dialogue is sparse) to the fine points of detail which left me either laughing or touched. At once perfectly controlled and yet entirely non-contrived, The Man Without a Past should be textbook material for anyone wanting to write a screenplay.

Finally, there's the requisite romance, in which our man without a past courts Irma, the Salvation Army worker. Unlike so many films produced this side of the pond, Kaurismäki offers a full range of emotion while never stooping to cheap sentimentality. Best yet, the film is punctuated entirely by the sounds of American rock 'n' roll.

Yes, the movies have been trying a bit too hard to be weird of late. But The Man Without a Past proves it can be done without being cloying or irritating. Bravo!

The Man Without a Past opens Friday, April 18 at Cinéma du Parc

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