La Môme

I've just seen that movie tonight on a private screening. This is really a great film, very moving. The directing is original and really not academic. All the cast is incredible and Marion Cotillard IS Edith Piaf... I can't find words to express what is more to me than a great job. I couldn't believe that the film lasted 140 minutes, I thought I was there just for an half an hour. That maybe the only bad point: Piaf's life was so rich that maybe you want to know more about it and wish that the film was longer, but at least it would have been a mini-series.

Just run and watch it as soon as possible! Sorry if my English isn't good enough to express all the good feelings I have for that film.

It is a crime that most people in America do not know of Piaf or her music. Or if they do it is thanks to the Grace Jones version of LA VIE EN ROSE (which is not half bad).

Marion Cotillard as Piaf was a dream to watch... particularly when she played the older Piaf. Her pain, her loss came through exquisitely. And even the two actresses who played Piaf earlier in life were excellent. The director - Olivier Dahan - has been criticized (and rightly so) in other postings. But in the case of the 3 Piafs he has done his job well, creating the full character of the woman.

And for me the highlight was toward the end when Piaf sings NON,JE NE REGRETTE RIEN (NO REGRETS). The song written for Piaf is a summation of the film and her life. And for the first time in a VERY long time, I actually had tears on my face in a cinema.

That alone is a very high recommendation.

Piaf's tumultuous life receives a superb framework in this excellent biopic. I've read some criticism of Dahan's editing style which switches often to various parts of her all-too-brief life, but with a woman of such roiling emotions and dramatic upheavals, how could it not be so? The two things I found missing here were her WWII Resistance activities and her final marriage to a man twenty years her junior. But then again the film might have approached the three- hour mark and at nearly two and a half, you walk away feeling as though you witnessed a train wreck in slow-mo. Please do not let this prevent you from seeing an astonishingly fine recreation of a life that is so fully lived you cannot believe it. Piaf's magnificent, emotional singing is fully complemented by Cotillards balls to the wall performance. Heart and soul are in total sync here and Cotillard manages to age astonishingly well. This is a terrible tale of a child grotesquely abandoned emotionally by her parents. Piaf's will to live is inspiring even in the face of self-destruction that makes Judy Garland's own battles with alcohol and drugs seem minor in comparison. The parallels to both women are hard to ignore. The rest of the cast is first-rate, and the film beautifully evokes the eras covered in her life. Best of all there is the great Piaf recorded legacy which is well-handled here. There's no sense that Cotillard is not singing and that's a testament to the skill that suffuses this fine film. Excellent.

Yesterday I received an e-mail from a friend with highlights of the biography of Edith Piaf and I finally decided to watch "La Môme". This awesome film presents, in a non-chronological sequence, the sad biography of this French icon from her childhood to her death. Marion Cotillard is the perfect personification of the singer and really deserved the Oscar of Best Actress in 2008. The cinematography, art direction, sets, costumes and soundtrack are stunning. However the story fails exactly in the passions of Edith Piaf – her affairs with Yves Montand, Marlene Dietrich, Jacques Pills, Charles Aznavour, Georges Moustaki and the most important, her marriage with the Greek hairdresser Théo Sarapo (Theophanis Lamboukas) are totally omitted. Last but not the least, in accordance with the legend, Théo Sarapo that was twenty years younger than Edith inherited her debts and would have committed suicide after paying them. He was buried beside Edith and her daughter Marcelle in Paris. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Piaf – Um Hino ao Amor" ("Paif – A Hymn to Love")

I saw this film at the French Film Festival in New York in April, and the memory of it still leaves me shattered. It is a brutally candid portrayal of Edith Piaf, who was known as La Mome, or the Little Sparrow. She had a violent, drug-filled and tragic private life, making Billie Holiday look like a Catholic school girl by comparison. (She was proud of being the same age as Holiday, and often referred to her in conversation.) Marian Cotillard is simply amazing in the role. She captures Piaf's looks perfectly, and her brushes with illness as well as her fame are vividly portrayed. Gerard Depardieu makes only a brief appearance, but the rest of the cast does a fine job. The more I have thought about this film, the more it reminds me of 8 1/2, and wonder if others will see the similarities. The only thing that keeps me from giving it a 10 is that by the end, the audience is completely wrung out, and there seems to be a one-note aspect to it. Perhaps a bit of editing would have done the trick. In any case, this is head and shoulders above most summer fare and any film or cabaret music buff will enjoy it.