Underdog stories: spirited humor livens films about the down-and-out

National Catholic Reporter, May 16, 2003 by Joseph Cunneen

Those who fear that a foreign art film will be dismal and incomprehensible should try Aki Kaurismaki's wistful comedy, The Man Without a Past. The title is quickly explained when its central character (Markku Peltola) is savagely beaten and left for dead after arriving at night in Helsinki, Finland. Totally swathed in bandages and apparently, a goner, he suddenly gets up in bed, stumbles out of the hospital and collapses on the riverbank.

Although he has lost everything, starting with his memory, he is not overwhelmed by depression but seems to have discovered a special kind of freedom. Living in an abandoned shipping container and making friends with the down-and-out of society, he exhibits an instinctive practicality, and his minimalist conversation with those who befriend him suggests a kind of morose lyricism. When he is taken in by a family that itself possesses nothing, he takes a while to speak. "You can talk then?" the wife says. "Sure," he replies, "I just didn't have anything to say before."

The initially depressing atmosphere changes into wistful hilarity when the amnesiac wins over the "attack" dog that the dictator-landlord of the shantytown (Sakari Kuosmanen) leaves behind to guard him. Even better, he gradually wins the love of Irma, an earnest Salvation Army blonde (Kati Outinen), who works in a nearby soup kitchen; their romance, played out with great restraint and minimal dialogue, is funny, believable and oddly moving.

Kaurismaki, a world-class director ("The Match-Factory Girl"), is a minimalist who wanted "to make a film that will make Robert Bresson seem like a maker of epic action pictures." "The Man Without a Past" is probably his most available movie. Always avoiding sentimentality, he combines striking shots of the Nordic sky and considerable use of what his central figure calls "rhythm music" as he suggests the rich humanity of life among the squatters.

The central figure's most notable achievement is his transformation of the Salvation Army band into a group that can do a passable version of rhythm and blues, with the woman who managed their thrift shop (Annikki Tahti) transformed into their lead singer.

His ironic philosophy of life makes the morose amnesiac credible and endearing, a deeply humane oddball. Critical purism would find a degree of contrivance in its ending, but the movie earns its sense of triumph. Its laconic sophistication conveys such a sense of generosity and nobility that some will make a contemporary parable out of its wacky and often hilarious details.

Holes is that rare movie made by Disney for kids that may actually entertain their parents. Written by Louis Sachar from his own Newberry award-winning novel, it has more plot than I could follow, and a 13-year-old hero with whom both children and adults can readily sympathize.

Stanley Yelnats (Shia LaBeouf) comes from a family that has suffered from a generations-old curse originating in Latvia. His latest piece of bad luck comes when a pair of sneakers falls from the sky into his hands just before the police arrive to arrest him for stealing. He is sent to Camp Green Lake, a Texas correctional facility full of rattlesnakes and lizards, where there is no water for miles around and the boys are forced to spend their days digging large holes in the desert. The camp, of course, is a perfect children's nightmare, where work is supervised by dictatorial Mr. Sir (Jon Voight) and two-faced Dr. Pendanski (Tim Blake Nelson). The boys' endless task is defended as a way to build character, and there is no point in running away since one would die of thirst before getting anywhere. A further plot thread is that the camp's warden (Sigourney Weaver) is hoping the boys will unearth some mysterious treasure she believes to be buried in the sand.

Director Andrew Davis wisely makes Stanley's development the emotional center of the movie. The boy gains in resourcefulness and develops a needed toughness as he learns to deal with the other boys at the reform facility. Stanley befriends the smallest kid in the camp, Zero (Khleo Thomas); when he teaches Zero to read, it becomes a source of power. Initially, it's difficult to see the connection between, Stanley's story and the family curse, even though the latter is repeated several times by Madame Zeroni (Eartha Kitt). But "Holes" even manages to weave together a non-sensationalized interracial romance and a legend about the 19th-century kissing bandit Kate Barlow (Patricia Arquette) before rescuing all the kids from Camp Green Lake.

The camp villains overact shamelessly, but the audience with whom I saw "Holes" couldn't have cared less. The movie is confident and upbeat, and it's hard not to get excited when Stanley and Zero run away and have to climb those majestic cliffs in order to make their escape. A leisurely underdog story with a social conscience, "Holes" will keep you wondering what will happen next.

I don't want to be declared an Iranian agent, but Marooned in Iraq--its original title, "Songs of My Homeland," would be more appropriate--is the best movie so far this year. Directed by Bahman Ghobadi, who made the memorable "Time for Drunken Horses," it celebrates the indomitable spirit of the Kurdish people, and is set in the time just after the Persian Gulf War when Saddam Hussein was bombing his own Kurdish population.