Directed by Aki Kaurismäki • 1992 • France
Starring André Wilms, Matti Pellonpää, Karl Väänänen

This deadpan tragicomedy about a group of impoverished, outcast artists living the bohemian life in Paris is among the most beguiling films by Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki. Based on stories from Henri Murger’s influential mid-nineteenth-century book “Scènes de la vie de bohème” (the basis for the opera “La bohème”), the film features a marvelous trio of Kaurismäki regulars—André Wilms, Matti Pellonpää, and Karl Väänänen—as a writer, painter, and composer who scrape by together, sharing in life’s daily absurdities. Gorgeously shot in black and white, LA VIE DE BOHÈME is a vibrantly scrappy rendition of a beloved tale.