La Vie En Rose

I watched La Vie En Rose on Saturday night, in a nutshell it is a disturbing, insightful, brilliant piece of film.

It centered around the life story of the illustrious Edith Piaf, Piaf was the name she adopted at the beginning of her career, her manager commented she was like a bird and so she took up the name 'Piaf' meaning swallow.

Aside from her glitzy success, her earlier life was shrouded in dark neglect, brothels and drugs. Her mother paid her little attention, her father used to work at a circus, he rescued little Edith from her mother's neglect, but I was shocked to find he left her with his mother who ran a brothel... I hope you can understand me when I say that a brothel is no place for a child to grow up in... at all. She nearly lost her sight from keratitis, after she had recovered and some time elapsed, her father took her with her to the circus (a wise move in my opinion) but the working women had grown a deep attachment to the child, possibly due to her innocence and untainted purity, and the leave of Edith was strongly opposed, resulting in a distressing farewell sene. It was at the brothel that Edith was introduced to the act of praying to St. Theresa whom the ladies would visit when seeking solace. Edith's belief of St. Teresa grew up with her in adulthood.

A few years later Edith's father fell out with the owner of the circus and chose to move his act as a solo on the streets of Paris... one word to give you a clue of what he did: Joint Hypermobility (okay, two words). It was then that Edith was suddenly put on the spot at the age of 9 to do something by her father, or the crowd would disappear. She sang, and that's where it started.

Growing up she continued to sing on the street and local clubs (hence not being needed as a working girl), her talent was discovered by a talent agent and she got to taste her term of stardom, until one of her acquaintances died of a drug overdose, that was when she believed herself finished as her own involvement in drug abuse was becoming more aware by the public.

She was also quite the drinker.

She eventually came back when she got an opportunity to sing at a vast music hall, which reinstated her position of excellent singer, as the years went by she was able to expand her career in New York, where she met Marcelle, a famous french boxer, married of course with three children. They fell in love..... yeah whatever, it's still wrong.

Edith had a rather nervous disposition to begin with, but at the death of Marcelle in a plane crash, she wallowed her pain in regular daily injections of what I assume to be cocaine. Five years later she was married to a man I doubt she loved, living in the US and heavily dependent on the psychoactive stimulants. She entered rehab. where she was asked to sing the fame Non, Je ne Regrette Rien, she sang when she got better. but not too much later she was diagnosed with jaundice due to Liver Disease, a result of her unapologetic drinking, from her youth to her stardom. She died as a result.

It was at this point in the film that I felt no sympathy for this domineering, dictating egotistical woman at all. She was a remarkable singer, a gift god gave her that brought her from the slums of Paris to the safety of New York. But she was rude, a drunk, drugged, uneducated and shockingly of all... a neglectful mother, leaving her two year old daughter to die of meningitis when she was still a cabaret singer. She inherited her singing gifts from her own neglectful mother but paid no remark of gratitude or respect to her.

She drank herself to her death and I have to say, she had it coming. By the end of the film I felt no envy, jealousy or admiration towards her. She had a retched life, she obviously could not help the unfortunate start in life, but God gave her the most remarkable gifts in life and she used the benefits reaped on booze. Despite the fame and fortune she died incapacitated, immobile and dreadfully weak, a result of her own infliction and mental dependencies.

Even though the film was not focused on faith or religion, I saw God bestowing gifts on a little girl in poverty, a dramatic turn of a life, the removal from the dark to sparkling lights. But Edith Piaf remained a wretched. To me it widened my eyes on how lucky my life started out and remained, how ungrateful I am to those around me and the comforts I keep shrouded around me.

It was definitely an eye opener.