La Vie en Rose - B+

On DVD (2007), in French with subtitles, 140 minutes, PG-13.

With a palette of colors as diverse and resonant as the emotions it explores, La Vie en Rose tells the often heartbreaking story of legendary 50's French songstress Edith Piaf. The daughter of street entertainers, Edith was raised in a brothel until she was old enough to accompany her father, eventually singing for her dinner on the streets of Paris. The memory of what a woman can have to do to survive and what kept her from that life are never far from Piaf, nor the arthritis she contracted from her time on the streets and the drugs she used to kill off that pain. Rising through the music business, she first made her name as a cabaret singer before becoming an international recording sensation and touring extensively. She died at the age of 47 at the height of her fame.

Marion Cotillard is phenomenal as Piaf, bringing a physicality to the role that is difficult to describe. The arthritis affects Piaf early, but Cotillard employs arthritic movements so that Piaf seems old and young simultaneously—keeping in the viewers mind her death even in the most joyous scenes. This is exacerbated by the non-linear storytelling which moves between her old-age to youth seamlessly, so that we know where she’s going and allowing us to watch her slow, then quick, descent.

The cinematography is gorgeous and works symbiotically with the script, most notably in Edith’s doomed love affair with married boxer Marcel Cerdan. Shot in the rich colors of a perfected memory, every moment is a romanticized, exaggerated portrait of love. The long continuous take of Edith in a hotel room waiting for Cerdan then learning of his death then walking, surreally, onto the stage of a waiting concert hall is worthy of Hitchcock at the top of his game and one for the ages. All of Piaf’s life is understood to be moving towards and away from this moment of rapturous love and heartbreak--indeed, being summed up in it. While the film lags a bit in the middle, the final 25 minutes are great filmmaking, surpassing the recent batch of musical biopics from this side of the pond. B+

On a side note, the DVD makers chose not to subtitle the French songs. The songs were obviously meant to offer commentary on Piaf’s life at that moment and in many ways hold the film together, so not knowing these words was, to me, a real obstacle to fully enjoying the film.