La Vie En Rose

Hi Aki,

So I watched la vie en rose and I didn’t like it. Man, I was confused – it’s as though You’re already supposed to know everything that happened in her life. This first struck me when she walks up this long staircase, into a big room, where there’s a body on the floor. Somebody offstage says, ‘It’s all her fault’ and she leaves, and meets a guy who says, ‘Come with me,’ and he’s a cop and ask her ‘Do you know Albert? How about manny the sailor? And him, and him, and him?’

Man, who died? What happened? I guess the French know all about that. But I don’t know shit.

Then it’s jumping all over the place, New York, California, Paris, 1920, 1947, 1960…where are we? When are we?

And what happened to ‘Daddy Leelee’ Gerard Depardieu, the guy who gave her the first cabaret job?

And who was the pimp she was paying, but refusing to turn tricks for? Is she a hooker or not? If she’s not, why is she paying him?

I didn’t know though that ‘Je Ne Regrette Rien’ that song we mentioned before, came so late. it’s like the end of her career already!

And every scene was like the climax of another movie. she’s high, she’s drunk, she’s crazy in love, she’s crazy, it’s the most important night of her career, it’s the worst night of her career.

Some of it was so over the top it was like a parody.

It’s weird: some scenes required you to already know her life story, but in other scenes they tell you everything.

Basic problem of the movie is that she lived too full a life. Her life story is enough for 20, 30 movies. You can’t put it all into one like this, because you end up with ‘greatest hits’ of super-highs and super-lows just like this guy did, and she comes off as a parody of the show-business rise-and-fall story.

One other interesting thing: the movie avoids the second world war entirely. that’s one good aspect to jumping around like they did, they could just ignore those 8 years. I imagine they ignored those years because Piaf did things then that even these guys didn’t want to admit.

Another problem with the film is that it treats an artist, but you’d never know she was an artist. The guy who introduces her in his cabaret makes her practice; the guy who trains her for music halls and concerts trains and instructs her ruthlessly; but we never see her taking her art seriously. She remains the drunk, drug-addict little girl who sings on street corners for pennies, and might be turning tricks at night too.

It’s like the National Enquirer version of her biography (with the war left out)

… I checked Wikipedia: Papa Leplee, Gerard Depardieu, disappears…because he’s the body on the floor! I didn’t even recognize who it was! Amazingly bad work, although maybe in cinema I would have seen his face better.

And the war years are controversial: some called her a traitor for singing to the Germans, she claimed she was a secret member of the resistance, and maybe it was just too complicated to get into. But it remains a big gap, for that period is soooooo important to France.

Oh, here’s another thing that bugged me in the film. Marilyn Cotillard did a very good job at acting especially, teamed with the makeup people, in aging from 20 to a very-decrepit looking 44 (she looked more like 80) – but when she sang, although she matched lips perfectly, her throat didn’t move. It looks fake, and it’s worse when you have a closeup on a singer who is only known for belting out the songs with great emotion – there just isn’t the life there when you don’t see the throat muscles working and the veins bursting.

(written around 7 February 2009)