Chris Knipp
08-04-2007, 11:22 PM
Olivier Dahan: La Vie en Rose
Oscar posted this just now (August 2007)—lappropriately on the thread entitled "New French Films at Lincoln Center." That thread goes back to February of this year, press screenings Feb. 8-21 for the "THE RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA 12TH ANNUAL SERIES":
I'm a bit surprised no one has posted anything about La Vie en Rose since C.K.'s review. I haven't checked national box office numbers, but here in Miami La Vie en Rose is a huge success. I think it will continue to occupy its screens for at least another month.
My mother used to play Edith Piaf records when I was a kid in the 60s and I vaguely remember her telling me about Piaf's "vida tragica". The biopic privileges the legend (perhaps the tabloid-press subject) over the person and I think that's a mistake. Otherwise, La Vie en Rose is a handsomely produced, gripping and emotional story with a ripe, myth-making performance at its center. Thanks for bringing this up, Oscar. There are lots of stories like that of your mother, I guess. Michael Guillen of "The Evening Class," who by the way also grew up in a Spanish-speaking household, happened to hear Piaf at his grandma's on the radio, as he recounts (http://theeveningclass.blogspot.com/2007/04/2007-sfiff50-la-vie-en-rose.html), and he never forgot the experience. Michael also interviewed (http://theeveningclass.blogspot.com/2007/06/la-vie-en-rose-evening-class-interview.html) the director of La Vie en Rose at the SFIFF.
Maybe we'll get some more comments on Film Leaf if there's a new thread for this film.
My full review in the Festivals Coverage section of Filmleaf can be found by clicking here. (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=16914#post16914) Here is my roundup comment below, and maybe somebody else who's seen the film would care to post their reactions.
OLIVIER DAHAN: LA VIE EN ROSE
This biopic about the tragic, tumultuous life of French singer icon Edith Piaf, "the kid sparrow," greeted ceremonially as a "film event" in France as befits an elaboration of the history of a national treasure, is crowned with a spectacular lead performance by Marion Costillard that's at once go-for-broke and precisely accurate down to the fingernails. Whatever you may conclude about this overwhelming, chaotic film — it really doesn't want to give you time to think — you're going to grant that Cotillard delivers one of the most remarkable star performances ever in a singer-biopic. "The narrative had to be impressionist, not linear," Dahan has commented. Certainly this isn't studied, analytical filmmaking but, as Dahan's remark suggests, the wildly impressionistic kind. The film shifts back and forth vertiginously between Piaf's last days — she died at 47 — and the many highlights and low points of her incredible earlier life. "This is a Kid who will make you blubber," wrote French critic Patrick Fabre after La Mome's Valentine's Day opening in Paris, "like you've never blubbered at the movies before." And this film too is beautiful and full of fine actors. (US distributor: Picturehouse).
Oscar posted this just now (August 2007)—lappropriately on the thread entitled "New French Films at Lincoln Center." That thread goes back to February of this year, press screenings Feb. 8-21 for the "THE RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA 12TH ANNUAL SERIES":
I'm a bit surprised no one has posted anything about La Vie en Rose since C.K.'s review. I haven't checked national box office numbers, but here in Miami La Vie en Rose is a huge success. I think it will continue to occupy its screens for at least another month.
My mother used to play Edith Piaf records when I was a kid in the 60s and I vaguely remember her telling me about Piaf's "vida tragica". The biopic privileges the legend (perhaps the tabloid-press subject) over the person and I think that's a mistake. Otherwise, La Vie en Rose is a handsomely produced, gripping and emotional story with a ripe, myth-making performance at its center. Thanks for bringing this up, Oscar. There are lots of stories like that of your mother, I guess. Michael Guillen of "The Evening Class," who by the way also grew up in a Spanish-speaking household, happened to hear Piaf at his grandma's on the radio, as he recounts (http://theeveningclass.blogspot.com/2007/04/2007-sfiff50-la-vie-en-rose.html), and he never forgot the experience. Michael also interviewed (http://theeveningclass.blogspot.com/2007/06/la-vie-en-rose-evening-class-interview.html) the director of La Vie en Rose at the SFIFF.
Maybe we'll get some more comments on Film Leaf if there's a new thread for this film.
My full review in the Festivals Coverage section of Filmleaf can be found by clicking here. (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=16914#post16914) Here is my roundup comment below, and maybe somebody else who's seen the film would care to post their reactions.
OLIVIER DAHAN: LA VIE EN ROSE
This biopic about the tragic, tumultuous life of French singer icon Edith Piaf, "the kid sparrow," greeted ceremonially as a "film event" in France as befits an elaboration of the history of a national treasure, is crowned with a spectacular lead performance by Marion Costillard that's at once go-for-broke and precisely accurate down to the fingernails. Whatever you may conclude about this overwhelming, chaotic film — it really doesn't want to give you time to think — you're going to grant that Cotillard delivers one of the most remarkable star performances ever in a singer-biopic. "The narrative had to be impressionist, not linear," Dahan has commented. Certainly this isn't studied, analytical filmmaking but, as Dahan's remark suggests, the wildly impressionistic kind. The film shifts back and forth vertiginously between Piaf's last days — she died at 47 — and the many highlights and low points of her incredible earlier life. "This is a Kid who will make you blubber," wrote French critic Patrick Fabre after La Mome's Valentine's Day opening in Paris, "like you've never blubbered at the movies before." And this film too is beautiful and full of fine actors. (US distributor: Picturehouse).