Not all that "Rose" after all!

Rating: 7/10 (30 June 2007)

As an "ex" Frenchman (firs 27 years of my life) I was pleased to attend a private screening of this film. I must admit I was very fond of Edith Piaf and knew her mostly through her songs. I always had some reserve about knowing too much about artists, my last deception was about Marlene Dietrich, whom I enjoyed much and somehow has a reference in this movie (this is actually a little odd, when justified comments mentioned the lack of exposure on other people who mattered so much in her life) Yes I'm not an historian and rather see people's art rather than their ups and downs, but somehow I may be alone in this department. In Sydney we had a show "A star is torn" that revolved around great people with a tragic life and as you can imagine, Edith Piaf was not omitted! All this said I enjoyed the movie very much and the power of the french word in a french born mind were cause for very emotional feelings. I can't appreciate how it went for the majority of the audience who had to deal with the french translation but I did witnessed a lot of emotion there too. How one can measure the difference of appreciation? I had moment where it was a little too much for me, we were fairly close to the screen as we were treated with 2 live songs from a local performer before the film started. (I think she was local as I had not heard much of her before)and so we chose to seat somewhere in the center of the first ten rows. A friend of mine who also enjoyed very much the film summarised the (ordeal)this way. "This was so much in your face"! and it really was. I'm thankful for some of the other comments I read that were so well written and gave me more insight in this movie adding to my enjoyment and also refreshed my memory of important parts of Edith's life that were somehow omitted. Well go and find it for yourself, I can't imagine you'll regret it. Lastly there was a mention of my favorite Edith's song, the one given by the soldier about to be sent to the front. Did she really had no regrets?