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La Vie En Rose [2007]


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Great acting, shame about the edit
Review date: 2008-11-23 Rating: 2 out of 10

First, there's no question the absolute star of this movie is Marion Cotillard. She delivers a blistering performance more than worthy of the Oscar. The support actors and actresses too all play their part with conviction and honesty.

So why only one star?

The edit, the direction. But mostly the edit of the screenplay. This film jumps about across timeframes in a completely random way. So much so that it leaves the viewer wondering exactly what timeframe we are watching. Are we in 1925 or is this now 1959 and then, oh wait a moment, we're back in 1940.

It attempts to stell Piaf's remarkable story via a series of fleashbacks and flashforwards but the insubstantial direction and editing makes it hard to work out what we are seeing. Only Cotillard's make up and hairstyles give us a clue. Occasionally a cut will have a quick 2 second caption of which year we are in but most often, there's nothing.

The edit is the single most frustrating element of this film which could have been 5 stars it really could but by halfway through I'd lost the will to care about it anymore.

This is a "French" film done by Americans. Its a Hollywood pastiche of a French film, it spends far too much time trying to be a blockbuster and not enough time being a biopic. It has none of the intense characterisation of French films, none of the slow chronology that marks out a good French tale and none of the real exploration of character one has come to expect from the French classics.

The film was rated a 12. That's why we don't get to see more about Piaf's drug problems and why several of the more unsavoury elements of her life are merely hinted at. If it were a 15 or 18 and the Hollywood gloss was dropped for French grittiness it would have been truly remarkable.

Great acting, great cinematography. Needs a re-edit in chronological order then it would be far far more watchable.


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Reviews


A great central performance
Review date: 2008-11-17 Rating: 10 out of 10

I dont know about you but when I watch a movie I know when I have been impressed because time just flies by.'La Vie En Rose' is a movie that would have failed if the role of Edith Piaf had been badly played.Without question the performance of Marion Cotillard is fantastic and she fully deserved her best actress Oscar.It is a display of passion,desire,heartbreak and turmoil and it is brilliantly executed.Some of the scenes as Piaf enters old age are superb.I say old age but Piaf actually wasn't that old when she died but Cotillard captures her stoop,her fragillity fantastically well.

Don't be put off by the sub-titles as this is a movie that will hook you and make you appreciate just how good acting can be.It isn't a one woman show by any means as there are other fine performances.But is is Marion Cotillard as 'the Little Sparrow' that will linger in the memory.

Such a Great Lady betrayed into bigotry
Review date: 2008-11-04 Rating: 6 out of 10

This film had an enormous success when it came out and it was the winner of quite a few awards, Oscars and Caesars. But the DVD is already on sale, and at a dramatic low price. The film was well made, rich indeed and the actress did a fabulous composition to fit with her part, because it was only a part that was dictated by the author and director. All the nostalgic liked it for a short while because it was some music from a distant past but so few of Piaf's songs were actually performed, and in their entirety, that the film lost its nostalgic appeal very fast. But the worse was still to come because the composite portrait painted on this screen has little to do with the real woman. So many things are absent. Her deep connections with Jews during the war for one, and after the war for two, with her famous Exodus song. And the extremely devout Catholic mirage projected onto that woman is absurd, to the point of ignoring her last husband nearly totally, since he was a Greek Orthodox. The woman is betrayed into a neurotic even psychotic capricious clown that kills herself with morphine and other drugs, willfully and consciously out of foolishness, love seen as a derangement, and plain suicidal conduct. She wasn't that. She was warm, loving, extremely attentive to others and many other qualities that are ignored and even rejected so that she appears as a crazy Catholic that is attached, in the most derogative Buddhist meaning, to a cross and a Saint and Jesus. I was asked recently to produce a note on her "Jewishness" and I was embarrassed because in spite of all the links she had with Jews and Judaism and Israel, it is difficult to find in her life a real testimony about her religion, especially with her last marriage being in the Orthodox faith. And I think that this bigotry of the film explains why it is already nearly given away to anyone who wants to grab it. I personally feel betrayed by this film because I lived that period in a completely different light with widely accepted maybe untruths but magical and mythical stories about this great lady that has inspired so many other artists.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines


the sparrow who sings in our heart
Review date: 2008-10-27 Rating: 10 out of 10

THE FRENCH SPARROW
an extra ordinary woman brought to life in a really sharp biopic which makes ray and walk the line look like pedestrian fare .

emily coutilard gives an oscar worthy performance as the fragile and enigmatic edith piaf ,who rose from singing on the suburban streets of paris to become the greatest french singer of all times .

the script wonderfully captures every stage of her life in an ingeniously innovative manner with some of the best editing i have seen in recent times .

this covers her life from a child growing in her grandmothers brothel to her last moments as she breathes her last ,but even there you cannot forget her immortal song like no regret which is showcased in the origonal soundtrack along with the rest of her haunting work in her voice, as coutillard does a great job of lip synchorinising the legendary singer .

the movie details her love affairs and her sucesses as well as her shortcomings as a human being ,which make it bristle with a realistic dynamism i have yet to see in a movie for a long time .

reality and style combined with panache as only the french can do ,with great cameos by george depardieu as her early benefactor and jean baptiste daniels as the charismatic boxer marcel cedran ,but the same can be said for the awe-inspiring movie as well ,a delicately fragile account of a petit but an impossibly complex woman ,who is immortalised both by her art and coutillard .
- jbz7879

"Non, je ne regrette rien"
Review date: 2008-10-08 Rating: 10 out of 10

The story of France's most beloved singer begins in 1918 in a squalid section of Paris. Little Edith is abandoned by her parents and goes to live in her grandmother's brothel. There, she becomes blind from an eye disease and is cared for by the prostitutes. When she recovers her sight, she is forced to join her father as a street performer. Her remarkable singing voice is noticed by a night club manager and she begins her meteoric climb to success, but it is tempered by a series of personal tragedies.

The beautiful Marion Cotillard gives the performance of her life as Edith from her teen years to her death at age 47. She is physically transformed several times and is utterly convincing as a scrappy youth living on the streets, a sickly drug addict, and finally, a near-crippled and prematurely aged, dying woman. She rightly won the Best Actress Oscar for this challenging role.

The movie is in French with English subtitles, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment at all; in fact, hearing the beautiful French throughout made it better. Piaf's voice is heard on all the songs and it's a voice that reflects great pain and inner strength. This is an emotionally-draining film with outstanding acting. Highly recommended.

Product Details/Specifications


Artist(s):
Marion Cotillard

Actor(s):
Marion Cotillard

Creators:
Marion Cotillard (Primary Contributor)

Recording label: Icon Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: Icon Home Entertainment
EAN: 5051429101231
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 2
Format: Box set, PAL,
Release date: 2007-11-26
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Audience rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 135 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2007
Language: French (Original Language)
Language: English (Original Language)

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