La Vie De Bohème, Blu-ray (1992/2014)

La Vie De Bohème, Blu-ray (1992/2014)

I had thought I was unfamiliar with Kaurismäki, but then realized I had seen his more recent Le Havre (which also has André Wilms in the main role) in the past year. The Finnish filmmaker wanted to make a film based on the stories of Henri Murger of the mid-19th-century, which also provided the basis for the famous opera La Bohème. He felt he had to shoot it in Paris, since that’s where it takes place, but upon looking over the possible locations he discovered that the actual area of the stories now looked nothing like it did in the mid-19th-century. So he settled on a Paris suburb that was mostly unchanged. He also realized that shooting in color would make the film entirely too realistic, so he used a widerange black and white to convey all the dirt and grime.

Deadpan is the watchword of Kaurismaki and it may take some getting used to. The marvelous trio of bohemians consists of the poet Marx, the Irish composer Schaunard and the Albanian naive painter Rodolfo, who has an especially Buster Keaton sort of visage. At one point Schaunard (who looks like a large alley cat) performs for the other bohemians at a broken-down upright his monstrously avant piano piece, which is an amazing display. The poet gets a surprising advance from a publisher to run a fashion magazine, and at the same time Rodolfo sells a couple of his paintings to a wealthy patron played by Jean-Pierre Léaud. The trio goes wild spending money, with Schaunard buying a very odd 3-wheeled car which looks like a duck and becomes a sort of character in the film.

The fact that his actor Pellonpaa had to learn French to play Roldolfo is covered somewhat by his character being Albanian and only in Paris for a few years. They share in the absurdities of life, and seem to end up with women companions, but only Rodolfo is really in love with his, Mimi. But she tires of not having any money and runs off repeatedly with a wealthy admirer.  At the end of the film she dies, of course (I don’t think I’m spoiling anything here this time.) Kaurismaki usually has a wild rockabilly band in his movies, and this one is no exception. He also features his own black dog, Laika, and is said to understand and showcase dogs in his films better than any other director. The film is intended to be sad and humorous at the same time, but the acting style seems a bit stilted to me, and I liked his Le Havre  better. I think I prefer Murger’s stories as depicted in La Bohème. But this Finn is obviously a Francophile.

—John Sunier