Camden New Journal - Movies: La Vie En Rose

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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with WILLIAM HALL
Published: 21 June 2007

Marion Cotillard as France’s legendary Edith Piaf performing on stage in La Vie En Rose

France’s beloved songbird

LA VIE EN ROSE
Directed by Olivier Dahan
Certificate 12a

IT has to be her. A back view of a painfully thin silhouette framed by a theatrical spotlight, staring down from the stage on a rapt and silent theatre. Then… the haunting voice of Edith Piaf, France’s legendary Little Sparrow, fills the auditorium with her most famous song No Regrets, and the echoes thunder back off the walls as the audience rises to her in a standing ovation.
That voice has echoed down the decades ever since “La Mome” (the sparrow) was discovered as a street urchin singing for her supper in the thirties, and went on to become the darling of Parisian society with her songs of loneliness and despair. With her chalk-white face and all-black outfit, Marion Cotillard uncannily brings the icon to life against a background of night-clubs and candle-lit Left Bank cellars. The anguish in Piaf’s voice (yes, it’s the real thing we’re hearing, lip-synched by the actress) matches her life, with its succession of ill-fated love affairs, drink and drugs before her death from cancer in 1963 at the age of 48.
Among the men in the Sparrow’s career are her mentor Louis Leplee (Gerard Depardieu) and the true love of her life, middleweight boxing champion Marcel Cedan (Jean-Pierre Martins) who would die in an air crash on his way to a clandestine meeting with her.
Director Olivier Dahan charts a riveting account of a woman whose heart-rending search for love and happiness was eclipsed by her public image as one of the most memorable voices ever heard. These are harrowing scenes, made almost unbearable by the powerful songs that accompany them.
And the film belongs to Marion Cotillard, in a shattering performance which, if there’s any justice, will surely be recognised at Oscar time next year.

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