Whew-insightful, difficult and and almost too tough for me.

Rating: 10/10 (2 August 2007)

It is rare that I knowingly attend movies as difficult as this film because I admit to being an emotional coward and La Vie En Rose was a difficult movie to sit through. Certainly not because it was in any way poorly made; the movie was, in my opinion, sad and immensely thought provoking. Beyond simply being a biography of a popular singer, Olivier Dahan's direction and script writing forced the viewer to examine the many social situations that impacted on this person's life from the beginning of her journey on this rock. The French, more than other nationalities, seem willing to look at the underbelly of their society through art and the artists that produce that art. With Piaf as a focal point, Dahan peels away the fluff of the existence of one of modern France's greatest artists and we are left with a world we know existed but is little examined because it leaves people asking uncomfortable social questions about why societies allow such degradation to take place in the midst of plenty. How can children grow with no education; why people busk for coins with little hope of a meal at night; why can't families stay together and the greater question, why do we allow it to continue over and over and over? Marion Cotillard acted beyond acting; the pathos she brought to the screen was almost too much. I am not privy to on-screen dying--real death, not the pretend that Hollywood is forced to film because some people do not like to watch reality. Cotillard's portrayal of Piaf's final days went beyond acting; it was as if she moved into another realm of reality. I almost felt like a voyeur watching death because the makeup people made Cotillard look so terribly death-like.
Here in WA, the Film Editor of the local paper, Mark Naglazas, thought the film was brilliant except for the director's mishandling, in his view, of the juxtapositioning of the various stages of Piaf's life. I, on the other hand, thought that this movement forward and backward, gave a particularly insightful look at the traumatic episodes that Piaf passed through. I sat watching a wrenching life pass before me and I thought how well Dahan had written and directed the movie that I was watching.
La Vie En Rose is a wrenching movie; a movie that looks under the carpet but a movie that does this examination so well that the viewer is left satisfied because of the quality but deeply moved and saddened by all that was just viewed.
A must see film; film at its best!