Who woulda' thunk it?
Forget Julie Christie in AWAY FROM HER, forget the marvelous Ellen Page in JUNO, forget Keira Knightly's called-in performance in the barely watchable and endlessly annoying ATONEMENT, and even the remarkable Cate Blanchett as the best Bob Dylan in I'M NOT THERE.
The best lead female performance of the year is in a French film. A French film released a few months ago.This reviewer - who loves SciFi, Horror, and E-Ticket ride films - has two French films in their list of the top films of 2007, a very strange occurance indeed! The first is, of course, the artistically dreamy DIVING BELL & THE BUTTERFLY which was shot in French in France with an entirely French cast and directed by American Julian Schnabel; the second is the amazing LA VIE EN ROSE aka LA MOME starring an amazing talent not yet recognizable in the US, Marion Cotillard.
The incredible transformational lead work of Marion Cotillard as she channels French singer Edith Piaf is a tour de force performance that you will not soon forget. Cotillard's work here is one of the most stand-out female performances of all times, and those words do not come lightly to this reviewer. 
Not knowing anything about Edith Piaf will not keep you from being captivated by this film and Cotillard's performance, in fact, knowing nothing about Piaf might actually be better as you won't know what to expect. This reviewer knew nothing about Piaf before seeing the film and upon returning home immediately searched for videos of her on youtube. As you might imagine there are many. There are currently 1,470 videos on youtube when searching Piaf's name. Go check them out... after seeing the film.Named after Edith Piaf's most famous song, LA VIE EN ROSE (French for
"Life in Pink") is an impressionistically swirling portrait of an artist who lived with no regrets, but died with many. She was born in 1915 in Belleville, Paris (a high-immigration district with many low-lifes to its credit) into dire poverty to a singer/alcoholic mother and a contortionist circus and street performer father. Just before enlisting with the French Army to fight in World War I Piaf's father took her away from her failure of a mother and gave her to 
her Kabyle maternal grandmother, Emma (Aicha) Said ben Mohammed, to raise for the first few years of her life. Depending on which source you believe, her grandmother was either a madam or a cook in a Belleville brothel (in LA VIE EN ROSE she is depicted as a madam) and Edith was taken care of by the prostitutes of the house from whom she 
learned about love. Perhaps that's why her love life was one of the many tragic stories she lived.After returning from the war Piaf's father then took her away from the
house of ill repute to lead an impermanent life on the streets of the Pigalle area of Paris while he contorted his body for money and that was where she was discovered as she sang for her supper with her hand out for tips from the people passing by.
Luckily for Edith, nightclub owner Louis Leplee (Gérard Depardieu) was one of those people and he recognized her other-worldly raw vocal talent and immediately took her under his wing. Within a short time she was the featured performer at his popular nightclub Le Gerny off the Champs Elysees.Edith had many idiosyncrasies, she had a strange posture, she held herself in a hunchbacked position and was rarely ladylike, her behavior created quite a stir at the time. As a child she lost her sight due to a bout of meningitis. According to one of her biographies, she recovered her sight after her grandmother's prostitutes pooled money to send her on a pilgrimage honoring Saint Thérèse de Lisieux, resulting in a miraculous healing. From then on she prayed to Saint Therese, but apparently other than giving Edith her remarkable vocal talents, Saint Therese did not continue to look out for her.
Besides being raised on the streets, she was involved with underworld clubs and underworld people, and it was these relations that made the public convict her of responsibility in Louis Leeplee's street-mugging death. Piaf called Leeplee "Daddy" and was despondent at his death. Piaf developed early onset of arthritis and became addicted to injected morphine, which might have prompted her early death at only 47 from liver cancer.American biopics about great musicians, like WALK THE LINE or RAY, while fun, interesting, and well-performed, do not equal the profoundly moving experience of LA VIE EN ROSE. Director Oliver Dahan uses a
light, yet emotional, touch with his impressionistic brush to give us an imagining of what Edith Piaf's life was like in a fractured non-linear style of filmmaking that jumps back and forth across time and space, and though sometimes jarring and confusing, this style works well telling the story of Edith Piaf as her life was also fractured and confusing.Edith Piaf's voice and personal performance style was without equal. Read an interesting tidbit about the music in LA VIE EN ROSE from the wikipedia:
For almost all the performances in the movie (Heaven Have Mercy, Milord, Rien de rien, La foule, Cri du cœur, La vie en rose (English version), Padam Padam, Mon Dieu, Hymne à l'amour, Mon manège à moi, Non, je ne regrette rien), the original recordings of Piaf were used-because the director thought it impossible to replicate her uniquely distinct voice and because Olivier Dahan said he wanted to keep it as authentic sounding as possible-except for 4 songs performed by Parigote singer Jil Aigrot : Mon Homme, Les Mômes de la Cloche, Mon Légionnaire, Les Hiboux. Apart from that, La Marseillaise is performed by child singer Cassandre Berger (lipsynched by Pauline Burlet, who plays the young Édith in the film), and we can also hear Mistinguett's Mon Homme and Il m'a vu nue (sung in part by Emmanuelle Seigner).
Edith Piaf was a poor and insecure girl with a world-class talent that she barely understood how to manage... and sadly the people around her understood even less. She was wild and unpredictable and once she gained popularity she became even more unmanageable. She, and 
those in her entourage around her, seemed to think that she could do and have anything she wanted simply because she was a star. Towards the end of her career she needed to continue working for the money, but her health was poor and she was forced to cancel many concerts and suffer the financial penalties. She would have fit in well today in comparison with our celebrity stars' behavior in our 21st century world.Cotillard's performance in LA VIE EN ROSE is so astonishing and so brilliant that no other female performance of 2007 even comes close. If she doesn't win the Oscar for Best Actress it will only be because not enough people had a chance to see her. Make sure you're not one of them.
(True to my prediction, Marion Cotillard did win an Oscar for her astounding performance in LA VIE EN ROSE)
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Read Marion Cotillard's Road to Oscar, a fan blog focusing on her Oscar chances, updated daily.
Read an interview with Marion Cotillard
Read an interview with Olivier Dahan
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Digital Dogs rating: A
MPAA rating: PG-13 for substance abuse, sexual content, brief nudity, language and thematic elements.
Running Time: 140 minutes
Producers Alain Goldman, Catherine Morisse, Director Oliver Dahan, Sebastian Caudron, Actors Marion Cotillard, Clotilde Courau, Jean-Paul Rouve, Sylvie Testud, Gerard Depardieu, Jean-Pierre Martins
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© 2008 by Digital Dogs
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--- Digital Dogs is gather's Los Angeles Movie Correspondent ---
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Comments: 20
I'm no lover of French pop music, quite the opposite, in fact. But ever since I saw Cotillard's amazing channeling of Edith Piaf I've been telling anyone who would listen that she was the one to beat for Oscar gold. I found it laughable that anyone would even mention Julie Christie's performance in AWAY FROM HER in the same sentence.
Even though this review was late getting published I really wanted my review to be out because I loved this so much. It's on DVD now, so you don't even have to go to the theater.
Oh, you've done another great job, review wise - excellent work.
Despite the fact I was taught to sing La Vie En Rose 53 years ago during voice lessons, I didn't even like that part of it. If the actions of Piaf are accurate there was very little to recommend her. I imagine the poor thing was emotionally and mentally damaged by her terrible life. One I didn't care to have disected for my "entertainment." Sorry this one got a "hated it" rating from me.
And actually, Deloris, one could make a case for Paif herself being a cowboy of her time.
And just like another favorite film of mine from 2007, INTO THE WILD, the story is painful and poignant and deeply meaningful. Not every film has to make you feel good and cheer for the protagonist at the end. Real stories about real people's lives do not all end well.
I'm so glad so many people saw it and loved it, and I hope I've influenced you all to see this small French film that most people in the US barely even heard about.