La vie de bohème

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.

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.

This is a hypothermic look at three dropout artists (a writer, a painter, a musician) who live in an undefined time and place (from the look and feel of it, maybe the suburbs of Paris in the 1950ies). The painter (an Albanian) is actually quite good, the writer distinguishes himself by using an overly florid language ("We'll be right back, like arrows thrown by hand."), the musician doesn't know how to play an instrument. They unerringly define themselves as unrecognised (as opposed to untalented) artists, they never have any money, and they give their devoted women a hard time. Kaurismäki portrays them in his unique style which uses pristinely arranged images in conjunction with absurd humour.

Some people may not get the point. I loved it. I first saw it when it came out in 1992, which was before the internet. I have since managed to google that the movie is based on the same book as Puccini's opera "La bohème". Kaurismäki adopted the book the other way around than Puccini, whereas the opera is colourful and melodramtic, the movie is dour, black-and-white, and minimalistic -- but also funnier.

'La vie de boheme' (1992) takes, like many other films by Aki Kaurismäki, a classic theme, including its story and characters, and transplants it to another historical period and another world - the Kaurismäki universe. In the case of this production, he takes two of his favorite actors from films made in Finland and brings them to Paris to film the location of the Parisian bohemian and the love between Mimi and Rodolfo. The starting point is the same novel published in the mid-19th century that inspired the opera "La Boheme" but the characters have insecurity and in-adaptation to the mercantile world that surrounds them specific to many of Kaurismäki's heroes. Nothing of the extroverted exuberance of the parties in Puccini's work reaches 'La vie de boheme', instead we have copious doses of Finnish melancholy. We do witness an opera scene or rather a scene the opera, because the camera is directed not to the stage but to the hall to capture two of the heroines of the story dreaming of an untouchable world in the supreme sounds of Mozart's music. As in the novel or the work inspired by it, love cannot overcome death.

The heroes of the film are three failed artists, perfect only in their incompatibility with the world around them. Marcel (André Wilms) is a writer who is not able to shorten his 21-chapter texts and adapt them to the tastes of contemporary readers. Schaunard (Kari Väänänen) is a composer whose strident works are not supported even by his friends. Rodolfo, the painter (Matti Pellonpää), is thrown out the door outside all the galleries to which he tries to place his paintings, but at least he has an admirer and buyer who provides for a while the three a thin source of income. Unfortunately, this Rodolfo is also an illegal immigrant (from Albania, from all places) and just when he found his love in the person of the bartender Mimi (Evelyne Didi) he is discovered by the police and deported. The plot follows somewhat the lines of the story we know from Puccini's opera, with social and personal details adapted to the Paris of the last decade of the 20th century. Each of the three men will live ephemeral love stories, united fby their friendship and their poverty in a world where their art has no chance to be appreciated and ensure their livelihood.

What does the Kaurismäki version of "La Boheme" bring new? It is noteworthy first of all the cynical and pessimistic view of the relations between artists and the surrounding society. It does not help, of course, that each of the three is lacking talent and is a failure in his own field. 'La vie de boheme' also captures the role of women in intrigue - they seem much more materialistic and down to earth than their lovers, and will leave them when they are convinced that they are no longer able to support them. Even Mimi is far from the soft image of Puccini's work, and the choice of an older and less attractive actress accentuates the effect. Kaurismäki does not give up melodrama, but seeks it elsewhere, creating an anti-romantic version of the story. Benefiting from the services of the extraordinary cinematographer Timo Salminen, he builds on the screen an almost timeless Paris, paying homage to the French filmmakers and the classic works of this film school. His "La Boheme" is not sung but narrated amid grunts of frustration. This special movie, like all Kaurismäki's movies, is not to be missed.

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.