Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #189 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-11-26
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Box set, PAL
• Original language: French, English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 135 minutes

DVD Description
From the slums of Paris to the limelight of New York, Edith Piaf's life was a battle to sing and survive, live and love. Raised in poverty, Edith's magical voice and her passionate romances and friendships with the greatest names of the period - Yves Montand, Jean Cocteau, Charles Aznavour, Marlene Dietrich, Marcel Cerdan and others - made her a star all around the world. But in her audacious attempt to tame her tragic destiny, the Little Sparrow - her nickname - flew so high she could not fail to burn her wings.

Synopsis
The life and career of Edith Piaf explodes on the big screen with LA VIE EN ROSE, a biopic which focuses on Piaf's relationships with some of the most eccentric personalities of her generation, including Marlene Dietrich, Yves Montand, and many more.

The Daily Mail
`Simply sensational… worthy of an Oscar'

Customer Reviews

La vie en rose of a not-so-Little Sparrow (7/10)
`La vie en rose` (or La Môme - "the kid" - as it is known in its native France) is a refreshingly unconventional biopic of the diminutive chanteuse Edith Piaf. While it charts the singer's childhood - first in a brothel, then as a street performer - it thankfully resists the need to take the prosaic approach common to most biopics, by spelling out her story from A to Z. While not entirely free of the genre's clichés (montages of congratulatory newspaper cuttings fill in some of the historical gaps) La Môme is an impressionistic piece that evokes the intensity and melodrama of the singer's life and songs. The film may not therefore tell you an awful lot about Edith Piaf - which might disappoint if that's what you were expecting - but the film captures something of her mood: a life of violent turmoil, tragedy, drunkedness and adulation.

With sudden and non-chronological shifts in time, and a mood of inexorable tragedy, Piaf's life is presented as nightmarish and carnivalesque. You may not find yourself even liking the eponymous character very much as Marion Cotillard's Piaf is a caricature of the "Little Sparrow"'s tragic persona, one arguably inseparable from the myths redolent in her music. In a performance for which she won an oscar, Cotillard overdoes it at almost every capricious turn, from the vulgar to the vulnerable.

`La vie en rose` is unrelentingly miserable, with the leading lady screaming and collapsing with such a cartoonish vigour that it is hard to tell whether she is guilty of overacting or tongue-in-cheek parody. The film's style - its bloody, saturated reds and urgent, busy camerawork - leads me to believe that it might be the latter. The roving movement of the camera sits somewhere between Scorcese's mob operas and the hyperactively whimsical (and distinctively French) filmmaking of Jean-Pierre Jeunet ('Amelie', `Delicatessen').

Certainly, fans of Piaf wanting to learn of her (slightly controversial) role in the war-time period will be quite shocked by the lack of concession to establishing fact in this film. While this does not bother me - I usually find biopics tediously obsequious - some moments of calm might have salved the excruciating intensity of La vie en rose, which wallops you over the head with melodrama in the manner of Piaf's singing voice. Furthermore, it seems that Piaf's childhood is in fact shrouded in mystery, and certainly her loyalties during the Second World War are also subject to debate, so a more impressionistic account was probably the logical option. There are several brilliant scenes, not least the one in which Piaf learns of her lover's death in a plane crash, and she is seen walking through her appartment in despair straight onto the stage in front of an audience. A horrific and dreamlike sequence, it's suggestive of a physically punishing performing life impelled by loss and sorrow, and possibly a self-destructive streak.

One element that isn't consistent in this film is Piaf's size. Piaf was the "Little Sparrow" - shy of five feet - and the producers of `La vie en rose` didn't make up their mind if they were to be true to this fact or not. Sometimes she is presented as conspicously little, crowded by her supporting cast - technically dificult, for Cotillard is at least a foot taller than the woman she is portraying - while in most other scenes the pretence is abandoned. In the case of her lover, a middleweight boxer, it is patently ridiculous that Piaf be close to his eye level. Maybe there is some kind of deliberate metaphorical value being woven into this - her changing stature or confidence for instance - but I'm not buying it. "The little sparrow" was very much part of her identity and iconography, and they have cut crude corners around it.

I can see why Marion Cotillard won the Oscar.
If nothing else, I encourage people to buy this film just to admire and marvel at the sheer brilliance and remarkable finesse with which Cotillard portrays Edith Piaf. Her acting throughout is simply exceptional and in a class of its own. Such talent is rare and one of a kind! Great also if you like Edith Piaf's songs. Cotillard certainly deserved her Oscar and Bafta!
10 Stars just for her acting!

Awesome!
Well worth watching, but make sure you have tissues, a drink (or 4), and chocolate - you need to actually concentrate & watch this film.
I did get a little annoyed with the very dark lighting in lots of scenes - never can see the sense in filming something you cant see - but I guess that addded to the moodiness of it, & the acting & story were more than capable of carrying the darkness.
Fab film - really enjoyed it.
I now have to go out & learn more about Edith!