The Bohemian Life

1992 [FRENCH]

Comedy / Drama / Romance

12
IMDb Rating 7.6/10 10 7106 7.1K

friendship homeless person paris, france composer painter playwright

Plot summary

Three penniless artists become friends in modern-day Paris: Rodolfo, an Albanian painter with no visa, Marcel, a playwright and magazine editor with no publisher, and Schaunard, a post-modernist composer of execrable noise.

Director

Aki Kaurismäki Photo
Aki Kaurismäki

Top cast

Kenneth Colley Photo
Kenneth Colley as Balayeur de rues
Samuel Fuller Photo
Samuel Fuller as Gassot
Louis Malle Photo
Louis Malle as Gentleman
Jean-Pierre Léaud Photo
Jean-Pierre Léaud as Blancheron
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
946.23 MB
1280*692
French 2.0
NR
Subtitles fr  
23.976 fps
1 hr 43 min
Seeds 3
1.71 GB
1920*1038
French 2.0
NR
Subtitles fr  
23.976 fps
1 hr 43 min
Seeds 14

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by kerpan 8 / 10

A Finnish take on "La Boheme"

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).
Reviewed by paulijcalderon 9 / 10

Witty, smart and fast, but at the same time tragic, joyful and human.

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.
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