La vie en rose

This French film about the life of Edith Piaf features a spectacular turn by Marion Cotillard as the singer, whose life was as melodramatic as any song she ever sang. The songs and Piaf's singing (which is perfectly reproduced here, not imitated by another singer), are powerful, even if a person can't understand every word of French.

While the bare facts of Piaf's family background were grim enough, (her mother and she lived on the streets while her soldier father fought in the French army & she was periodically dropped off at her grandmother's bordello for safekeeping), the film doesn't touch on World War II, Piaf's relationship with intellectuals such as Cocteau is ignored, as is Piaf's role in the French Resistance, her affairs and mentorship of several young men, including, among others, Yves Montand. Nor does it explain much about her mercurial temperament, though it presents her instability vividly,. Surely, this lady must've had enormous self-discipline to have gone as far as she did.

Still, despite these quibbles, Cotillard is a remarkable actress, and the visual depiction of Piaf's whirlwind life was easy to get caught up in and the sequences when she sings are beautifully staged.

Viewed: January 1, 2010.

First of all, I'm surprised no one has yet reviewed this film here. Yes, it received mixed and mediocre reviews from prominent film critics, however, I believe, it contains one of the greatest ever acting performances in film history. Marion Cotillard gives a truly powerful and memorable performance as the legendary French singer Edith Piaf. This is reason alone to see the film.

I was curious and intrigued about this film, mainly because of the rave acting reviews and Academy Award win for Marion Cotillard. I will occasionally view a film, based on a great acting performance alone, knowing that a great acting performance alone, does not insure an exceptionally good screenplay or job of directing.

"La Vie En Rose" has an obvious major flaw: it's screenplay is very non- linear and overly melodramatic. I'm not familiar with the real life history of Edith Piaf. I had the impression the director and screen play writer here, were excluding some important logical parts of this famous woman's life. From early on in the film, the erratic approach begins, and spoils the film.

Biography films have their own special challenges: what parts of a well known person's life to show, in what style, what not to show of their life, and in what sequence. I believe the best method for biography film making is to begin by establishing who this person was, with their death, and then go back in time to some significant event early in their life and then move forward in time, in a linear style, until we reach the end of their life. This method could be called "The Mobius Strip Method" of biography film making: the beginning and end are one and the same. The story ends where it began. A good example of this method working successfully is: "Ghandi", 1982.

My impression of "La Vie En Rose" is: the director, screenplay and film editor were moving around in time excessively, in a highly erratic and emotional manner. In other words, the story cuts in the film were done mostly or entirely for emotional reasons of the main character. This apparent randomness creates confusion and loses the audience. The best time to apply the emotional method of film editing to a biography film would be the appropriate emotional ending of the film and an examination of the person's key life moments and circumstances of their death.

In a nutshell, art films with a great acting performance, can otherwise be failures, as is sadly the case with this film.

Director Olivier Dohan clearly has style and technique. I can only assume he was an influence on creating and/or approving the use of erratic, emotional based story jumps and film editing.

Back to Marion Cotillard. Besides her obvious talent and ability, she did considerable research of the real life character: Edith Piaff, and clearly connected heart and soul with this character. It's one of the rare times, an actor, stage or film, can so effectively connect with and convincingly portray the heart and soul essence of a character, which is a special treat indeed.