ThiefHott Too much of everything

BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

poikkeus Imagine a Finnish director making a film that's as much a tribute to French film as a parody of its worst excesses, and you have a fair idea of what La Vie de Boheme is about. Aki Kaurismaki uses his thoroughly deadpan comic approach to render the lives of a group of pathetic artists in France, none of whom are even close to being artists (except in their own minds). In fact, it's easy for the uninitiated to take the film very seriously, given Kaurismaki's dry comic touch. I caught this at the SF International Film Festival, where a fair part of the audience (including myself) was caught up in laughter - while admiring the painterly black and white photography and perfectly pitched performances. Those uncomfortable with a Jim jarmusch style of post- modernism might even feel lost from time to time. But all of Kaurismaki's film's are comedies, some more outrageous than others, and this one is about as perfect in conception as you might hope.

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.

rljsax 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.

KFL A French playwright, an Albanian painter, and an Irish composer, all living hand-to-mouth in Paris, devise various schemes to secure their next meal, or cheat the landlord, or help each other out of jams. Cynically witty and poignant by turns, La Vie de Boheme somehow manages to simultaneously embellish and skewer the old cliche about starving artists on the Left Bank. This might almost be the film to show your son or daughter when they have declared that they want to become a novelist or painter and move to an exotic locale--except that, who knows, it might have the opposite of the intended effect.I liked it quite a bit. Watch for the performance by the Irishman of his own piano piece for his friends, toward the end: hilarious!