La vie en rose
December 2007 Reviewed by: Mischa Hayek Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Olivier Dahan’s La vie en rose tells the absorbing real-life story of Edith Piaf, the French chanteuse who became an international star and symbol of Paris and France during and after WWII. Dahan wrote the script along with Isabelle Sobelman, but he based his story not upon any one book or source. The script is entirely original, incorporating information from many books, films and articles about the famous singer. He and Sobelman decided to look at the events that shaped Piaf’s character rather than provide a chronological history of her life. Dahan, though fascinated with her life, does not present Edith Piaf from the point of view of a forgiving worshipper, but actually paints a pretty unflattering portrait of the volatile singer. As depicted, Piaf was hell to be around and needed to be managed by an entourage of advisors and personal attendants.

Marion Cotillard portrays Piaf from her late teens to her death from cancer at the early age of 47, and it is truly one of the great performances. Cotillard completely embodies Piaf, who was only 4’ 8" in real life, and did her best to appear as diminutive as possible. While Cotillard did not do any of the actual singing when portraying Piaf, during the onstage performances when director Dahan used Piaf’s real voice, I could not detect the slightest semblance of lip-synching. So perfect was Cotillard in expressing the emotions of the songs that I truly believed it was her real voice.

Dahan apparently wrote the screenplay with Cotillard in mind, but when filming he also chose a great supporting cast, including Gerard Depardieu as Piaf’s first manager, Louis Leplée, and Emmanuelle Seigner as Titine, the prostitute who looks after young Edith (Manon Chevallier) when she is abandoned by her street-performer father, Louis Gassion (Jean-Paul Rouve), leaving her at a brothel run by his mother.

There is also some superb camerawork displayed by Dahan -- of note is a scene in which Piaf discovers that her love, famous boxer Marcel Cerdan (Jean-Pierre Martins), is killed in a plane crash. The camera moves with Piaf in one long unedited shot as she moves from room to room and from euphoria to despair as she realizes that her lover is dead.

HBO decided to release La vie en rose in an extended version with scenes not in its original theatrical release. Its original French language is maintained but with English, French, and Spanish subtitles. Oddly enough, the songs are not subtitled, just the dialogue. La vie en rose is not yet available on HD DVD or Blu-ray.

Picture quality on the DVD transfer is very high. The picture is vividly detailed with a rich palette of colors, and contrast is maintained well in very darkly lit scenes. However, despite those qualities, the image is never overtly impressive because of a consistently muted tone, likely intentional to match the somber nature of the story.

Sound is adequate with reasonably good tonal balance and clarity, but it’s not of the quality that I would like to hear from a movie so rich with music. The soundtrack should pop to life, but instead it’s somewhat dull and restrained, even in the musical passages, with a slightly woolly, hollow sound for most voices.

Unfortunately, HBO decided to release this DVD with only one bonus feature. A film of this quality deserves more. The 12-minute short "Stepping into Character" includes brief interviews with director Dahan and actress Cotillard on how she portrayed Piaf. When seeing Cotillard with her mild personality and without the Piaf makeup, the transformation into Edith Piaf becomes all the more amazing.

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