LA VIE EN ROSE: Blu-ray (Picturehouse, 2007) TF1 Film Distributors

Few bio-pics do justice to their intended subject matter. Instead, most regress to a level of artistic ennui caught somewhere between glamorized and glossed-over truths, and, enlivened, though thoroughly concocted fiction. Olivier Dahan’s La Vie En Rose (La Môme for the French release, 2007) is the exception to this rule; an engrossing tragic tome to penetrate the subconscious on a primitively visceral level, the picture culls together the heart-breaking complexities of the legendary French chanteuse, Edith Piaf without remaining slavishly devoted to a literal timeline of her life. Two narratives run their parallel course in Isabelle Sobelman and Dahan’s screenplay: the first, rather magnificently to follow the singer’s tumultuous childhood and squandered bittersweet youth; the second, foreshadowing Piaf’s fragile decline in health, her addiction to pills and alcohol, and, her ill-fated love affairs that immediately preceded her death. Dahan’s direction reveals the vibrant, textured intricacies of a woman who, too late in life, discovers her inner strength, as pieced together from the tattered remnants of a shattered memoir. No superlatives can effectively summarize Marion Cotillard’s hauntingly sublime central performance as the woman of the hour. In manner, visage and sheer acting prowess, she does everything but call out Piaf in an otherworldly resurrection, affectingly to send chills down the spine as she ignites the inner lantern of Piaf's passion, meant to stimulate and dwell forever in our hearts. When Cotillard steps before the microphone to recreate Piaf’s ‘Non je ne regretted rien’ the experience is the quintessence, the very translucence of Piaf's world-weary soul, seeping through Cotillard’s mesmeric turn; Piaf, having migrated into her newly inspired living tabernacle.

Wisely eschewing a literal adaptation of Piaf’s troubled life, director, Dahan instead employs the non-linear narrative, concentrating on those defining moments in service to his central impressions of Piaf as a willful, determined, yet delicate personality. And Cotillard allows Piaf’s humanity to shine through, under Jan Archibald’s occasionally heavily pancaked, Oscar-winning make-up applications that transform the otherwise gorgeous Cotillard into that crone-like, sad-eyed personification of Piaf herself. We are first introduced to 5-year-old Edith Giovanna Gassion (Manon Chevallier) a child of the hard-knock Belleville district in Paris, crying her eyes out while her mother, Annetta (Clotide Courau) sings for coins tossed in the street. Annetta writes to her child's father, Louis-Alphonse Gassion (Jean-Paul Rouve) an acrobat, fighting in the trenches of World War I, informing him of her decision to leave the child with her mother so she can pursue the life of an artiste. Returning to Paris, Gassion rescues Édith, who is ill; then, leaves her in his mother’s care; the madam of a brothel in Normandy. Surrounded by the oft harsh and unsettling business of prostitution, young Édith is nevertheless befriended by these working women, especially Titine (Emmanuelle Seigner), who becomes emotionally attached to the girl as her ‘big sister’, protector and caregiver, nursing Édith through a harrowing bout of keratitis-induced blindness. Several years pass before Gassion returns to collect his child. Despite grief-stricken protests from Titine and Edith, she is forcibly removed from the brothel, to shadow Gassion while he pursues employment as a circus acrobat. One evening, while she quietly observes a fire eater practicing his act, Édith claims to witness the apparition of St. Thérèse in the flames, assuring her she will always be at her side —an unwavering faith to follow Édith for the rest of her life.

After an argument with the manager of the circus, Gassion is left to fend for himself and his child on the streets of Paris. During a lifeless enactment of her father's contortionist skills Édith, meant to collect coins in a hat, is asked to ‘do something’ by one of the patrons. With little prompting, she sings ‘La Marseillaise’, with such undiluted emotion, the crowd is immediately mesmerized. Time passes. But Édith’s – now, played by Cotillard – situation has not improved. She is approached by nightclub owner, Louis Leplée (Gérard Depardieu) as she sings for her supper money in the streets of Montmartre with her friend, Mômone (Marie-Armelle Deguy). Impressed by her natural passion, Leplee invites Édith to his club for an informal audition; thereafter, crafting her stage surname – Piaf; a idiom for ‘the sparrow’. Alas, Piaf’s benefactor is murdered by a man police suspect to have been connected to the mafia. Édith’s next attempt at a singing career at a seedy cabaret is a disaster, shouted off the stage by its rough trade clientele.  With nowhere to turn, Édith befriends songwriter and accompanist, Raymond Asso (Marc Barbé) who, though a rather cruel task master, nevertheless guides the untrained chanteuse in the subtle art of performance, gradually honing her stage presence and managing her crippling bouts of stage fright that nearly derail her music hall debut.

The movie’s timeline advances; Piaf’s career having garnered a lot of steam, thanks to Asso’s influence. In New York City, Édith meets countryman, Marcel Cerdan (Jean-Pierre Martins), a dashing pugilist, currently competing for the World Champion title. Though she quickly learns from him that he has a wife, Édith begins a love affair shortly after Marcel defeats Tony Zale (Jean-Jacques Desplanque) to become the World Middleweight Champion. The morning after Édith has persuaded Marcel to fly from Paris to rejoin her in New York, she awakens, presumably, to his kiss. Rather ecstatically, she prepares him coffee and reaches for the watch she has bought him as a gift, suddenly startled by her oddly subdued entourage, standing around in her apartment. Édith now realizes the kiss was imagined, and learns from her friends Marcel has died in a plane crash. Hysterically searching the halls for his ghost, Édith is inconsolable. From here, the timeline advance further still; Édith, aged and ailing, tended to by a nurse. Quietly isolated at a clinic by the lakeside, we witness the feeble and hunched Édith relive moments from her past. We bear witness to Piaf’s collapse on stage, another moment, when Édith suddenly realizes the first signs of the onslaught of crippling arthritis, and find her severely addicted to morphine. After her husband, Jacques Pills (Laurent Olmedo) persuades Édith to enter rehabilitation, she travels to California. Clean and sober, we follow Édith’s manic endeavors to once more find happiness – short-lived and apparently, fraught with all manner of personal mishaps.

Years pass. Édith, fragile but feisty, bickers with her husband and devoted friends about her ability to perform at the Olympia. No one except Édith believes she will be ready in time to sing. However, Édith draws inspiration from a new songwriter who presents her with the sheet music to, ‘Non, je ne regrette rien’.  Director, Dahan intertwines all manner of memories herein, blurring the narrative timeline as Édith prepares for the Olympia; the cascade of recollections foreshadowing the heartbreaking and premature end to Piaf’s career and life.  Waiting to go on at the Olympia, Piaf implores one of her staff to retrieve the sacred cross necklace she always wears. In solitude, she is haunted by painful memories. The cross returned to her, Édith shuffles out onto the stage, to debut ‘Je ne regrette rien’.  We relive the last of her golden moments; a brilliantly sunny afternoon on the beach; the sage Édith graciously answering an interviewer’s questions.  These gradually shift from the banal - “What is your favorite color?” – to a more intimate glimpse into the heart of a woman whose life is, by now, as intimately understood to us all as our own. Asked to impart what learned counsel she as accrued from her many years, and, would offer to a mature woman, a young girl or even to a child, Édith simply answers “to love” – the inference, answering her own lifelong search and desire, both to have given and received it in kind. We observe Gassion cradling Édith’s emaciated and limp body, an old woman at barely age 47. Tenderly, he tucks his daughter into bed as subtitles indicates this is the last day of her life. Fearful, Édith suggests she is unable to remember anything clearly; her disjointed vignettes, muddled and patchy, as she slowly expires. The film ends with Édith’s haunting performance of ‘Non, je ne regrette rien’ at the Olympia.

La Vie En Rose is so incredibly satisfying as a work of art, we can completed forgive director, Dahan his glaring omissions from the historical record. For time constraints alone, the sheer girth of Piaf’s legendary life and career had to be pruned. Many events have been completely expunged; Piaf’s second marriage to Greek hairdresser, Theo Sarapo; her French Resistance activities during the war, and, her film career in totem are never even referenced. And yet, even more miraculously, we feel as though Dahan and Cotillard have given us an accurate, life-sized portrait of this monumental 20^th century artist. The Sobelman/Dahan screenplay is so adept at gathering together the most important bits from Piaf’s vast repertoire, and even more successful at reconstituting them into a series of intricately woven flashbacks, that enough of the flavorful élan to Piaf’s colorful, rich, and devastatingly tragic life, serve with more than just the usual hokum of triumphs and heartaches. La Vie En Rose is therefore not a musical bio-pic in the traditional sense, but a finely tuned and deeply textured melodrama with portions of Piaf’s musical brilliance interlaced as artistic mélange or counterbalance for effect. Although original Piaf recordings were used, four of the songs featured in the movie are, in fact, uncannily sung in the great lady’s style by singer, Jil Aigrot. Edith Piaf died of liver cancer on October 10, 1963 – a national treasure whose funeral procession literally stopped traffic in the streets of Paris. Dahan avoids the thought-numbing splendor of this epitaph, instead to conclude his treatise on a more whimsical note of hope and promise; Piaf, on her death bed, recalling the glories of this strange, wonderful, surreal and often bittersweet experience we call life.  In a picture fraught with many darkly poignant scenes, this finale creates an almost liberating reflection on Piaf’s extraordinary life beyond the footlights. In the final analysis, La Vie En Rose is a ‘must see’ motion picture experience.

After the disastrous DVD releases of La Vie En Rose – two, competing versions; one from HBO, the other from Sony – neither with satisfactory video mastering applied, we finally have a viable source, remastered in 1080p on Blu-ray from French distributor, TF1 Films.  The results here do justice to Tetsuo Nagata’s gorgeous cinematography, faultless contrast, tremendous clarity and exquisite detail. Colors are bold, rich and vibrant, the image really favoring sepia-like yellows, blood reds, lush greens, deep blues, and some gorgeous, velvety blacks. Everything here is immaculate and pops as it should with only the occasional hint of edge enhancement to otherwise gently mar a near reference quality presentation. Age-related artifacts are a non-issue. But please note: while back-packaging infers this disc is ‘region B’ locked, the slipcase correctly identifies it as ‘region free’, meaning it will play anywhere in the world. TF1 has included two audio tracks – both in French, one in 5.1 DTS, the other, Dolby Digital 5.1. The DTS is preferred, with its deep bass and additional resonance in the rear channels. Dialogue is crisp. The musical portions are hauntingly beautiful. TF1 also provides removable subtitles in both English and French. Having included a DVD copy of the movie also, many of the extra features are, regrettably, exclusively housed on that standard disc. On the Blu, we get the original theatrical trailer and all 135 pages of the shooting script – in French. We also get optional access to ‘behind the scenes’ information, as well as access to exclusive photos, plus an audio commentary by Dahan – alas, in French with NO subtitles. On the DVD, we get a ‘making of’, deleted and extended scenes, footage from the New York premiere, and La Mome Piaf - a documentary on the life and legend, again, in French with no subs. Bottom line: La Vie En Rose is required viewing for anyone who appreciates great stories expertly told on film. Dahan and his collaborators have certainly done their homework. This movie is a devastatingly emotional cinema experience, once seen, not soon to be forgotten. In the last analysis, it is one of the finest movies ever made.  And, at a time when too many of us are concentrating on tragedies at home, I implore everyone reading this review to elevate your hearts with this superb example of picture-making at its very best. 

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

5+

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

5+