non, je ne regrette rien

If "La Vie en Rose" is playing in a theater near you, I highly recommend that you watch it. It's well-crafted, well-acted, and quite moving. A biopic about French singer Edith Piaf, it's not hagiographic. She was certainly human: selfish, addicted to drugs and alcohol, etc. But she also experienced enormous tragedy: her only child dying, several traumatic relationships, a childhood spent in her grandmother's brothel, singing on the streets to earn money for food & booze. Though the film doesn't touch on her resistance work during WWII, that's also an important element of her fame and fiery spirit.

The film is non-chronological, which works well in this case as it contrasts her youthful disappointments, her meteoric rise to fame, and then her physical decline from chronic & terminal disease in her late 40s. For me, the overarching theme of the film was for Piaf to actually 'live' her music rather than just belting out pretty songs. By the end, when she is onstage in what will be a final heroic rendition of her song "Non, Je ne Regrette Rien", you can see that she really owns the song. It is pure Edith Piaf, with all of her flaws, singing of the richness of her life. Here's a quick youtube vid of her performing the song following these translated lyrics...

Translated from the French
No! No regrets
No! I will have no regrets
All the things
That went wrong
For at last I have learned to be strong

No! No regrets
No! I will have no regrets
For the grief doesn't last
It is gone
I've forgotten the past

And the memories I had
I no longer desire
Both the good and the bad
I have flung in a fire
And I feel in my heart
That the seed has been sown
It is something quite new
It's like nothing I've known

No! No regrets
No! I will have no regrets
All the things that went wrong
For at last I have learned to be strong

No! No regrets
No! I will have no regrets
For the seed that is new
It's the love that is growing for you