Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Celia A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Christopher Culver Aki Kaurismaki's 1992 film LA VIE DE BOHÈME is the Finnish auteur's loose adaptation of Henri Murger's classic 19th-century collection of short stories, set in contemporary Paris with an eclectic cast of French and Finnish actors, all speaking French. As the film opens, the penniless aspiring writer Marcel (André Wilms) is being evicted from his apartment. Though a series of amusing events, he falls in with the equally aspiring and penniless painter Rodolfo (Matti Pellonpää) and composer Schaunard (Kari Väänänen). The film then tracks their comical struggles to make money, gain lasting fame, or charm women in spite of their lack of a stable existence (Evelyne Didi plays a major supporting role as Rodolfo's girlfriend Mimi). Though the three men are perennially underdogs, their firm friendship and readiness to share what little they have makes the film a heartwarming experience.The poorly spoken French of the foreign actors, as well as the mismatch between the ostensibly 1992 setting and the decaying interiors, must have seemed bizarre for viewers who didn't know Kaurismäki before. However, it is quite of a piece with this director's prior work. Kaurismäki had made a number of films in his native Helsinki that are ostensibly set in the present day, but feature ramshackle tenements, working-class struggles, and antique appliances that are all right out of the 1950s. At some point, a band will appear on a stage playing high-energy rock music from a bygone age. In LA VIE DE BOHEME, Kaurismäki has reused the exact same elements in a Parisian context. He managed to find decrepit places one would have never expected in the modern city, and in one scene a punk band perform even if it has little relevance to the overall plot. While Rodolfo and Schaunard are explained as Albanian and Irish immigrants, respectively, they are really bringing to this film a typically Finnish quality.One of the quirks of Kaurismäki's Finnish-language output is that the actors deliver their deadpan, almost robotic lines in the Finnish literary language, which is vastly different from the ordinary Finnish spoken language. Kaurismäki has managed to create a similar effect here by lifting dialogue from Murger's original book, as in 19th-century stories the actors often speak with elaborate constructions and literary flair that is completely unrealistic for the particular setting. There's also an amusing opposition between the garrulous Marcel and -- remember, the characters' Irish or Albanian back stories need not be taken seriously -- the silent, stony other characters, as the Finns are an infamously taciturn race.Still, Kaurismäki's applications of his perennial formula are usually very entertaining, and I never tire of his darkly humorous vision. And even if most of the other elements are the same as always, LA VIE DE BOHEME features an unexpected ending. Usually in Kaurismäki you can foresee the nice little ending that's going to come from a mile away, but here he takes the viewer by surprise.Cinema aficionados will enjoy the small roles of a sugar baron, played by legendary French New Wave actor Jean-Paul Léaud, and a publishing magnate, played by American director Samuel Fuller. (Viewers who don't know who Fuller is will think it odd that he exits the stage with some profanity spoken in English and a distinctive old-timey New York Jewish accent!) This might not be the best introduction to Kaurismäki -- the films making up the so-called "Proletariat Trilogy" of the late 1980s might work better for that. Still, for me LA VIE DE BOHÈME was a funny and touching picture.

Andres Salama Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki's black and white adaptation of Scene de la Vie de Boheme (originally a non fiction book by Henri de Murger dealing with the lives of the starving bohemian artists of the Paris of the first decades of the 19th century, and later a famous opera by Puccini) is surprisingly faithful to its source material, despite its modern settings. The place is still Paris, and the film closely follows both the book and the opera, with the proud but poor artists living at the day to day to survive in the city of lights. We even have the famous burning of the manuscripts to get some heat during the cold winter. The late Matti Pellonpaa, a Kaurismaki regular, stars as Rodolfo, as well as other less known, but equally fine actors (the actress playing Mimi, however, fails to create an impression). There are a couple of cameos by Nouvelle Vague faves Jean-Pierre Leaud and Samuel Fuller. Note: Later, Rent, a less accomplished modern retelling of La Vie de Boheme, this time set on New York City, was also produced, first on stage, and later on film.

memento-3 Aki Kaurismaki is one of the most important modern directors. He manages to make a movie out of nothing just like, say, Mike Leigh. And his characters are simply every-day people, whom he manages to transform into convincible movie heroes or, most likely, antiheroes.This movie is not different: it is very sad and also joyous at the same time. It treats a very serious subjects (pourness, loneliness, desperation) without being pathetic or overblown and it makes, in the most beautiful way, a strong connection between the characters and the viewer.Marvellous acting and genious direction makes this movie another Kaurismaki's little/big masterpiece.

Michael Kerpan (kerpan) 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).