La Vie en Rose

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La Vie en Rose (La Môme) (12A) 140 mins

The title is of course ironic: Edith Piaf's life was anything but rosy. Rather it followed the classic showbiz course: a dirt-poor childhood followed by professional success, an unsatisfactory private life and an inexorable descent into drink and drug dependency. Abandoned by her street-singer mother and raised in her grandmother's brothel, afflicted with blindness in childhood (the prostitutes saved their money to send her to Lourdes), she started singing to accompany her contortionist father's act. She was discovered by a night-club owner who was subsequently murdered: she was a suspect. A love affair with a boxer was cut short by his tragic death in a plane crash; there were many other lovers and two stormy marriages, the second to a much younger man. She became the unifying voice of war-torn France and emerged as a national icon before dying of cancer at 47, by which time she looked 70. Her anthem Je ne regrette rien must be one of the most famous songs in the world. She is played here with ferocious energy by Marion Cotillard, last seen on Moviola screens as the love interest in A Good Year. That part required little of her beyond looking good: this one is the opportunity of a lifetime and she grabs it with both hands. Gérard Depardieu plays her manager.

"Several outstanding scenes, Piaf’s music and name as well as Cotillard’s tour-de-force performance should attract sizeable crowds across Europe and beyond. " european-films.net

"If Piaf was an empty shell, she knew how to put on a show, on and off stage. Channeling the shell, the performer, and the shambles in between, Cotillard raises France's poor, beloved chanteuse clean out of mundane pathos, into the ruined grandeur she deserves." Village Voice

NB This film is in French with English subtitles.

www.edithpiafmovie.com

Showing:

12-Apr Durweston

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