La Vie de Bohème (1992)

This was phenomenal. Really fun to see Kaurismäki take these Finnish actors and have them act in French and making it really work. I had no idea what to expect and the film blew my away with its drama and humor.What really makes this whole thing work is the trio of main characters. They work excellently with each other. They have sharp dialogue, witty fast humor and best of all; They are relate able. This is a film were small moments matter. For example, there's a scene were a person is unable to pay for a meal and an older man overhears it and pays it for the person. What's the explanation for the older man helping? Simple, he was behaving kindly to someone in need. This older man never appears again and has no other relevance, but it works very well here. The inclusion of that moment was nice because it shows you how important those small gestures can be.Kari Väänänen was probably my favorite character. He always provided some levity when needed and Andre Wilms always delivered a smart comeback to whatever bad thing faced him, he is like the french Roger Moore (only less upper class). Matti Pellonpää was very subtle and sold all the emotional torment his character went through.I can see that Kaurismäki adopted a very classic look to tell this story. The tone feels like an Italian Neo realism film mixed with the elements from Aki's work. There's even a little bit of Ozu in this. Don't know if it was intentional, but I could feel the influence.In short: It was witty, smart and fast, but at the same time tragic, joyful and most importantly; very human.

La Vie de Boheme is an modern Neo-realistic version of the classic french novella "Scenes la vie de Boheme" a mostly forgotten story from the romantic era. Some people will know the story from the very famous opera "La Boheme" by Puccini. The main difference of this from the opera is that it takes a more direct & modern approach to this. The Bohemians are more working class artists than what we would think of as (lazy)starving artists. In the opera Musetta is more of a gold-digging tramp in contrast Musetta in this movie leaves Marcel(lo) to move in with a more stable man as does Mimi. The only real problem I have with the movie is the absence of the philosopher Colline which is a loss.(He pawns his coat to buy medicine for Mimi.) Other than that I would recommend this film for fans of French neo-realism.

I wondered why I was actually laughing at a French film until I realized it was made by Finns. Reminded me a lot of Buster Keaton, except that the pratfalls are mostly cerebral. Deadpan comedy with style. The black dog was the Finnish Rin-Tin-Tin. I hope he got a nice bone for his efforts.

Although Aki Kaurismaki credits Henri Murger's collection of stories as the source for his "La vie de boheme" (1992), the underlying dramatic structure actually comes straight from Puccini's opera "La boheme" (with the central focus of the story of Rodolphe and Mimi). Superb black and white photography, with a droll script delivered by mostly dead-pan (but nonetheless funny) performers -- including beloved regulars like the late Matti Pellonpaa and Kari Vaananen (Kati Outinen, a very appropriate Mimi I would think, was missing, however -- maybe her French was not good enough).