Rendez-Vous. 2.

The glitzy, gala opening night festivities are over, and the Edith Piaf biopic La Vie en Rose [site] proved a smart choice for the festival opener. Anchored by the sublime performance of Marion Cotillard in the leading role (she's surrounded by many of France's finest actors, from Gérard Depardieu to Sylvie Testud and Emmanuelle Seigner), the film proved, if not sterling, then good solid iron: a serviceable look at the life of a sad, talented and fascinating woman. Olivier Dahan seems more proficient as director than co-writer, jumping back and forth in time but seldom confusing us. He takes some quite interesting risks, as well: silencing the striking Piaf voice during an important concert, thus allowing us to concentrate on Cotillard's visual presentation and the audience response to that performance.

The women in Piaf's life register much more strongly than do the men, with Seigneur and Testud particularly vital. Even so, all the subsidiary characters seem to have but a single characteristic designed to further the story and make their point: mom's selfish, dad's ineffectual, Marcel's the loveable lug, Louis Leplee is a big help and Tintine needs a child. Pascal Greggory, one of the screen's most interesting actors, is practically wasted here. But none of this matters much against Cotillard's galvanic thesping. In every scene, at almost every moment (once Edith has grown up), she carries the film and the rest of the cast along with her. Manon Chevallier is quite good, too, as the young Edith, and Piaf's singing is provided by Jil Aigrot, who sure fooled me. In her a cappella version of the "Marseillaise," not to mention all the Piaf "greats," she sports a rich and spectacular voice. At 2 hours and 20 minutes, the movie occasionally threatens to numb one's posterior, but then Miss Marion's face lights up the screen and all is well visually, if awfully downbeat emotionally.

Time Warner's Picturehouse is distributing La Vie en Rose, with a June 2007 opening planned.

Earlier: "Berlinale Dispatch. La Môme."

Posted by dwhudson at March 1, 2007 5:10 AM