La Vie de bohème (1992) review

Playwright Marcel (André Wilms), painter Rodolfo (Matti Pellonpää) and experimental composer Schaunard (Kari Väänänen), all living in Paris, become friends and experience difficulties paying for rent and food ... and then Rodolfo, an immigrant from Albania, is deported (and ordered to never return to France) and his girlfriend Mimi (Évelyne Didi) leaves him for another fellow.  This is Finn Kaurismäki's interpretation of the famous work by Henri Murger - who went through hard times in his own personal life - and while his inherently downtrodden aesthetic does match the theme, it's also lacking the humor of some of the filmmaker's better movies and is a tad too lackadaisical.  When it comes to the (predictably) tragic conclusion (Mimi's ill), it's not as poignant as it should have been - in this kind of environment, where the destitute have to rely on the 'kindness of strangers' (like filmmaker Louis Malle picking up the dinner tab), leaving this mortal plane early seems inevitable.