Kirpianuscus his magnificent performance. puzzle of a legendary life and career. a homage. and one of gems who recreates not exactly an existence but a form of definition of life. a bitter story about success, sacrifices, love and survive. and force to impose small victories as steps to self definition. not a comfortable film. far to be a lesson or support for charming dreams. only a confession. clear, brutal, honest, cruel, bitter. memories from a fight against death, hope and every form of illusion. end of a circle. Edith Piaf becomes a presence scene by scene. more than a character, it is one of heroes who reminds the simplicity of success. a film about roots and skin and blood and fruits of life. in high honest manner. using a great actress who becomes part of her role. Marion Cotillard. in a special, for its extraordinary force of message, film.

paul2001sw-1 The recent biopics of Johnny Cash and Ray Charles were quite well done, but at times it felt as if you could superimpose them over each other scene for scene. The problem is that each film tried to tell an essentially uplifting story of hard beginnings, super-stardom, setbacks and ultimate triumph, with great songs emerging as an expression of personal struggle. But there's just not that much drama in a tale of a talented rich person nearly (but not quite) screwing up, and emerging better for the experience, so once the initial breakthrough has occurred, the rest of the movies are just illustrated documentary. 'La Vie En Rose', the story of Edith Piaff, is a bit different, even though it also uses the "song as expression of self" trope. This is because Piaff, while she also came from a poor background and struggled with drugs, ultimately didn't have a happy ending: she died young, prematurely aged. Also, as the film tells it, she was a strong, tempestuous and difficult woman, someone who lived her wealth and fame as if it might be taken from her at any moment, a form of behaviour that was sadly self-fulfilling. Marion Cotillard plays this troubled soul with some brilliance, from street gamine to ailing diva. Piaff's music is at one level unsubtle, and its rarely heard in the modern world. But even if you're more partial to rock-and-roll, hers is the more compelling story.

kastri_gr La Mome is one of the greatest non-us films in the decade.It is about the life of one of the greatest French singers Edith Piaf portrayed by a very talented and very beautiful woman named Marion Cotillard.Of course other great French actors play such as Gerard Departieu,Emmanuelle Seigner,Sylvie Testud and many others.The film starts and ends with the same scene,showing Edith Piaf sining on stage.It starts from the age of 9 where she was raised in her Grandma's house and then later at a circus where by accidentally she finds out her secret gift her voice.Then we see her in the 30s and 40s how she developed as an artist,her great love that she never managed to see,her daughter who died very young and her deal she had with cancer which in the end it killed her.The last scene she is shown performing the beautiful song ''Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien'' in my opinion one of her greatest songs.Excellent film i do not wonder why it won so many awards with top the two winning academy awards for best acting role for Marion Cotillard and best make-up.This film truly shows what the European Cinema can achieve.

Rockwell_Cronenberg Well, this was just a giant chore. Marion Cotillard does her best and it's a very impressive transformation on her part, stripping away all of her elegance to dive into this character, but I've rarely seen a film so miserably directed. Olivier Dahan takes what must have been an interesting life and somehow turns it into two of the most brutally trying hours I've had in my life. I was so tempted to throw in the towel on this one many times, but was determined to stick it out.Unfortunately it never got better and things just became more melodramatic and less and less interesting. The structure is all over the place, jumping from time to time (to some other time, I think?) with no reason or rhythm. The whole thing is absolutely incomprehensible, to the point where I didn't know who half the characters were or what stage of her life we were at or what was even going on half the time. Absolutely ridiculous. Worse, they take this person and turn her into such a loathsome creature, there wasn't a moment where I was even interested in her.It felt like they were so desperate to bring out sympathy or empathy from the audience, but it was such a miserably hollow experience the whole way through. I love Cotillard to death and the physical transformation is impressive, but I can't praise her performance too much if I never even cared about this dreadful person for the entire two hours that I was forced to sit through her wretched life. A good physical work, but I was never able to feel anything.