Just perfect...

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

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 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).