La Vie En Rose

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")

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.

...a song about a singer.

I adore it. Nothing else is there to be said, really. The acting, all round, is sensational, but the lead, Marion Cotillard's portrayal of Edith Piaf, is beyond words. More astonishing even, I'd dare to say, than what Bruno Ganz did with Adolf Hitler in Der Untergang (although Ganz had only a mass murderer and historical criminal to work with, while Cotillard was dealing with, pardon me for saying, the soul of an entire nation).

I would like to comment on the script. The little symbolic moments, full of grief, full of such a profound sadness...I have never seen this done so well. Certain elements of the story, a conversation or object, are only within the lasting of the film transformed from everyday, mundane stuff into everlasting symbols of affection, of redemption and personal torment.

You see, this is the strong point of the film - it tries to(and often it manages) make you cry because of her tough life, but at the end you are crying because of the good things that happened to her. They too, are over: Edith never even regrets the bad ones.

The music is a whole story on its own. I've loved Piaf for some years now, but, alas, I don't speak French, and now, at last, I have some context to place the songs into...and it breaks me. It really does.

I saw the movie yesterday, went home, and listened to Edith's albums for hours, and they meant so much...they spoke volumes.

Anyway, the direction is perfect, although there is one scene towards the end which has problems - it tells, for the very first time, of a rather important event in the much earlier years of the singer's life , and the event in question seems to be out of place, sort of neglected - as if it should have been dealt with an hour earlier. But this is only one tiny scene, and even it, in itself, is masterfully done. Everything else is flawless.

The cuts and the singing are blended brilliantly together. I was especially struck, which is strange, by the end credits: they are very unusual and touching for a movie which is this musical (find out why!).

Anyway, my deepest recommendations. See it, it is really excellent. It is dark and human and bright, and full of spectacular music.

It is the 20th century.

I fell in love with it.

You might too.

I disagree with the previous comment regarding Olivier Dahan's direction, which was handle in my humble opinion, with such an eye for detail and created a wonderful, caring homage to Edith Piaf. I do believe that the chemistry between Mr. Dahan and the heart rendering performance by Marion Cotillard is what made the story riveting and visually stunning. Piaf's scattered "memories" are just what the film examines as she starts to dissect and remember fragmented moments in her life, and sometimes "in life" characters, relationships, lost loved ones are suddenly shifted and gone from one's perspective without any notice. The use of "just" the right amount of music, was done superbly as to not just make this a "concert type" musical biography but an exciting joy ride through an era long since past. By the time the credits were rolling both of my shirtsleeves were damp with tears of sorrow and tears of joy in discovering much more about such a remarkable, true modern day diva. I highly recommend this film.

Before getting to the review of this astonishing film, let me tell you about how I came to see it. On my way back to the UK from Indiana last week I had a seven hour layover in Newark. I don't much enjoy hanging around airports for hours, so I took the 30 minute train ride into Manhattan. Wandering up the road from Maddison Square Gardens I heard a smart-suited African speaking French into his 'cellulaire'. Wondering if he was from Côte d'Ivoire where we used to live, I followed him through a shop doorway. As my eyes adjusted to the rather greasy gloom, I noted that I had entered a little Caribbean bakery/restaurant full of black faces. I suppressed the desire to make a quick exit and joined him at the back of the queue at the counter. He turned out to be Senegalese rather than Ivorian, but was very pleased to have another chance to talk French...

After a very tasty $7 lunch of 'stew chicken with rice & beans' and a portion of fried plantains, I headed on up 8th Avenue. A few blocks further on I came to a cinema and decided that it would be great to see a 'movie' on a real big screen rather than the way I see most films these days through the distinctly low-def screen built into the back of the airline seat in front of me.

I was just in time to buy tickets for La Vie en Rose which was starting right away. Entering the big 'movie theater' I was shocked that at four on a Wednesday afternoon the place was packed solid. As my eyes adjusted and hunted for an empty seat I observed that I was once again the stranger - almost everyone there appeared to be over sixty. Perhaps it was the cheap day for seniors or the fact that La Vie en Rose had only opened a few days earlier but the film definitely merits a large audience.

Perhaps you are put off by foreign language films with subtitles, but to have dubbed this from French would have been a crime. It is a biopic of the life of Edith Piaf whose theme song was La Vie en Rose - literally 'Life in Pink' or more idiomatically 'The Rose-tinted Life'. Edith Piaf's gravelly voice and melodramatic life is superbly portrayed by Marion Cotillard as the film works its way through her life to the accompaniment of her distinctive songs. Of course, as in all French films which make it to the anglophone world, there is a role for THE French Actor as we often refer to Gerard Depardieu; he is the impresario who literally discovers 'the Little Sparrow' singing in the back-streets of Montmartre.

It was quite a puzzle to place each scene in chronological order as the film jumps around through more flashbacks and flash forwards than an entire season of Lost. Apart from that though, La Vie en Rose is an absolute triumph, rich with the colours of Piaf's tragic life. The entire audience stuffed damp handkerchiefs into their pockets, rose to their feet and applauded this guaranteed Oscar winner. Piaf finished her career singing a song which she felt summed up her life - "Non je ne regrette rien!" Take your friends to see this classic film and you'll have no regrets either.