La Vie En Rose

I have just watched the most wonderful film. Based upon it’s themes and story, none of it was what you would call uplifting or immediately identify as inspiring. The Great War. Alcoholism. Addiction. Abandonment. Failed parenting. Unrequited love. Affairs. Death. Loss. Grief. Music. La Vie En Rose is the tragic story of Edith Piaf, the French songstress who wooed the world with her hearty Parisian vocals and lived a most tortured and sad existence. It seems that for all the joy Edith Piaf brought into the world with her beautiful voice, she was destined to suffer endless tragedy and hardship in her own personal life. 

The film, starring Marion Cotillard as the “little sparrow,” is stunning. The way the film plays with time, jumping back and forth from the famous and established, yet quivering wreck of a grown up, Edith Piaf to her sylph of a childhood self, is gut wrenching. We want life to get better, and are continually devastated when it never does. It is the magical performance of Marion Cotillard that inspires me in this film. Her performance is utterly stunning, and absolutely deserving of the seven different Best Actress awards she garnered for her performance. 

In the midst of the worst, there is always beauty. The sparkle behind the eyes. The living, the breathing. The working at your craft when you are tired, miserable, fed up, feeling like all in the world is lost to you. The gift of music, of living for your craft because there is nothing else to live for. That is powerful stuff, and the kind of stuff that grips you at your very heart and soul. Marion Cottilard, and all the myriad of people involved in the making of La Vie En Rose, thank you.