The Fragile yet Indomitable Little Street Sparrow: Édith Piaf in Fragments

Rating: 10/10 (17 November 2007)

That 'La Môme' AKA 'La Vie En Rose' is a triumph for actress Marion Cotillard who manages to inhabit the persona of Édith Piaf is a given. This is a powerful, deeply moving tribute to a musical phenomenon whose impact on the world remains as heady as during her short lifetime (December 19, 1915-October 11, 1963). She remains a French icon but her singing and her life belong to the world: who can resist her "poignant ballads performed in a heartbreaking voice", the result of her life as an unwanted child, raised in a brothel, starting her career as a street singer with her circus contortionist father only to be discovered and given the opportunity to sing in a cabaret, a move that brought her to the attention of the world and made her one of the most sought after singers on the world's stages? No matter the degree of involvement in music, everyone has heard and reacted to her most famous songs 'La vie en rose', 'Hymne à l'amour', 'Milord', ' and of course her signature song 'Non, je ne regrette rien'.
Writer/director Olivier Dahan (with assist from Isabelle Sobelman) has elected to present Piaf's impact on the world not as a linear biopic but rather as fragments from her existence as a child protected in a brothel by prostitute Titine (Emmanuelle Seigner), her life as a street singer with her pal Mômone (Sylvie Testud), her 'discovery' by Louis Leplée (Gérard Depardieu), her descent into alcoholism and drug addiction after the loss of the love of her life - a married boxer Marcel Cerdan (Jean-Pierre Martins), and her eventual fame in New York. Oddly the impact she had on the French people during World War II is ignored and there are other large chunks of her life story that are missing. But in the end the fragments we are given allow us to empathize and understand the persona of Édith Piaf, and that makes any other misgiving irrelevant.
Devan obviously found the perfect actress in Marion Cotillard ('A Very Long Engagement', 'A Good Life', 'Pretty Things', etc) whose immersion in the role is breathtakingly brilliant. The feature accompanying the film on the DVD (already 141 minutes in length!) allows us to see and hear the manner in which Devan and Cotillard recreated Piaf in makeup, costume, body language and of course impeccable lip-syncing of Piaf's songs. This is a film that lingers in the mind not only as a memory of a great artist but also as a reminder of how even the most broken of spirits can survive and succeed. Stunning! Grady Harp