La Vie Noir

With the latest update to my Xbox 360 I now can watch thousands of videos from Netflix immediately on my TV! Even in HD! So, I've started to ravenously explore this and picked out, like, 30 movies to put into my queue. At the top was "La Vie en Rose" Marion Cotillard won best actress for her role in this film as the famous Parisian singer Edith Piaf. So onto the couch i plopped myself and eyes glued to the TV...
About 40 minutes into the film I thought to myself how many of the heart-wrenching aspects of the movie were stark throw backs to the "Film Noir" era. First was the non-chronilogical timeline that is a staple of many mid Noir cycle films.
In addition, the film is so dark, and depressing. You would never think that so many terrible things could happen to just one person. One real hard moment was when she revealed that she was only 44 in a scene where she is being cared for for a liver problem. However, she looks much older, maybe 70 years old. The music was the way that Edith hid. When she was in public, all she wanted to do was sing, because she was afraid that if she did not sing a certain show that night, she would never get another gig again.
I would recommend "La Vie En Rose" to anyone that has interests in music, french, or seeing a star rise from no where and dig herself a hole deeper than where she began.

Watch it!