A biopic of gusto

Rating: 8/10 (14 September 2008)

This tale of great gusto and assured instinct belongs to any top 10 of modern musician/ musical biopics (I have in mind an Avati biopic of a jazz-man, the Mann flick with Stewart )maybe indeed to any show artists biopics top 10. Visually, dramatically it is valid, and so are the performances. Anyone who fears the ugly touches of the postmodern stupidity may rest assured there are none here. It is an author movie, written with obvious interest in the subjecta wholesome tribute. The puzzle structure may be debatable, yet it does not work against the movie's main merits. It spares us the fashionable revisionism. I would of asked a more logical sequence, a more detailed and explicit reportyet the biopic here aims at giving rather, within an impressionistic frame, a few very suggestive scenes and snapshots, it prefers to explore several choice moments. The impressionistic approach is a little selfindulgent, and one would have liked if this was brought closer to a logic coherence in chronology.
Edith's life as narrated in LA MÔME has the disconcerting aspect of real livesa seemingly chaotic succession of ups and downsespecially dramatic in her own case. As with other biopics, it breaks the convention of conclusiveness, as no particular lesson, say, is to be derived from it. The point is that the reflection upon such a life carefully rendered is the aim in itself. As her death nears, Edith contemplates her life and seems to find a secret meaning in it. As a footnote, comparing the ages, I felt Mrs. Dietrich was shown a little too old when she has met Edith.
In biopics there is a strong devicealternating scenes of intimacy, of _intimismand of socialityshowing the main character cast into an exterior world, almost unrecognizable. This alternation works very well in the Mme. Cotillard film.
In a few scenes, Mme. Cotillard is amazingly beautiful and warm. The images of happiness and grief and grotesque are succinctly seized.
The director wished for his biopic a beautiful form, a visually, musically charming feasthence the festive airand in keeping with the narration's shape, in harmony, without betraying the content. The vignettes are drawn with a sure hand, with virile precision. The acts of life are presented or merely suggestedwith naturalness, without tasteless indiscretion. One can not fail to see that, in a way, LA MOME is reminding the movies of Edith's youththe French poetic realism. It's a movie made in the French poetic realism's key. (On the other hand, this approach only partially covers the biopic's intentions and form.) With his impressionism, the director shows a remarkable tactin choosing his scenes, in unveiling without over-stressing, in refusing the concessions to modern murkiness and pointlessness (the flick I had seen before this was a Scorsese oneCASINOthe contrast is telling). His tale has verve and brio and a visual charm. He has the courage and instinct of creatingeven in a documentary , presenting a character means creating, recreating him, choosing, synthesizing, intimating it, opting for a fundamental intuition. Fidelity to history means an option, a visioncreation.