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But then a strange thing happens: once the doctor has left the room, the man sits up straight in his bed and walks to the mirror, where, his face swathed in bandages, he calmly straightens his broken nose. The next time we see the man, he is lying unconscious by a river; we do not know how he got there or why he collapsed again, but this time, he is found by a family living in a cargo container in a shipyard near the docks. When the man, who is listed in the film's credits only as M, comes around, it turns out he has no memory of his earlier life; and so he begins to create a new life and a new identity for himself with the help of his new neighbors.
The film derives much of its humor from the rules and customs that are a necessary part of the social order yet sometimes seem rather absurd. Some of these rules get in the way of the very empathy that they are supposed to facilitate; because he has no memory, M has no identity, as far as the bureaucracy is concerned, and without an identity, he cannot open a bank account or apply for a job or even for social assistance.
One character, a gruff security guard named Anttila (Sakari Kuosmanen), makes a big show of his position as an enforcer of rules, but he bends them, partly to benefit himself, but also partly out of concern for his fellow human beings. Anttila makes the people who live in the shipyard pay him "rent," and he insists he will deny them thrice, "like Peter denied Christ at the coal fire," if the authorities find out about them. ("When can I move in?" asks M after arranging to live in a cargo container of his own. "As soon as I turn my back," replies Anttila.) But for all his bluster, Anttila ultimately identifies with the people who live under his protection; when the thugs who beat M reappear at the end of the film, Anttila remarks, "They've beaten many of us," and M notes his use of the first person.
The film also shows how simple acts of kindness can reach above and beyond the rules and make life just a bit more bearable, as when a restaurant manager gives M a plate of leftovers. And there is sometimes a reciprocity to this kindness; when an electrician diverts some power to M's new cargo container, M asks what he owes him, and the electrician replies, "If you see me face down in the gutter, turn me on my back." Most significantly of all, M befriends the people who work for the local Salvation Army; they give him soup and a change of clothes, and he, in return, begins to court Irma (Outinen again), a lonely Christian soldier who is stunned to realize that a man has noticed her.
M also suggests ways the Army can improve its evangelistic efforts, proposing that the band take up rock & roll to make its message more appealing. "We've heard about rock," says the drummer, as though the existence of such music were a vague and unconfirmed rumor, and although his naïveté is quite unrealistic,1 those who have lived through the Christian music debates of the past few decades will recognize the caution with which the church officials accept M's advice. When the band is about to play its first pop song, a fairly generic ballad about the lonely hearts of men, the officials Christianize it for the crowd—and justify it to themselves—by explaining that the song demonstrates "the futility of our worldly life without Christ."
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