A beautiful folk tale that ultimately moves because it is inspired, albeit with many freedoms, by the life of Céline Dion who, in addition to talent, had a complicated and somewhat Cinderella-like existence. But not only this: ALINE.
LA VOCE DELL'AMORE, by and with Valérie Lemercier, from 20 January at the cinema with Universal and Lucky Red, is not only a singular tribute to the pop star by an artist generally known for her irony, especially the portrait of an ordinary person, like many others, who had courage and success.
As for the latter, there is little to say: he is the Canadian artist who has sold the most records of all (200 million copies worldwide) and with an estimated assets of over 450 million dollars.
But in this fictional and melodic portrait of Céline Dion's life, with Lemercier in the role of 'Aline Dieu', Canadian singer who becomes an international superstar, there is also the great courage of those who are the three real protagonists of this dramatic comedy French: Aline / Celine herself, her mother Sylvette (Danielle Fichaud), the engine of her daughter's success, and her manager Guy - Claude (played by Canadian actor Sylvain Marcel), great love she married against everything and everyone: when they meet for the first time she is twelve and he is thirty-eight.
Finally, on the fairy tale front there are many elements that speak in this sense. Meanwhile, his Catholic family is very simple made up of fourteen children; the fact that at the age of only twelve Celine wrote her first song, Ce n'était qu'un rêve with the help of her brother Michel and her mother and, finally, her own artistic debut. In other words, the sending of one of her tapes recorded to the record company René Angélil who, struck by her voice, immediately invites her into his studio, gives her a pencil saying: "Imagine it is a microphone, now sing as if you were in a show that was sold out in any order of places ".
Far from any hagiography, but rather in the sign of "I'm an ordinary person", Lemercier's biopic, already at the Cannes Film Festival out of competition, points to the humanity behind the star. And he does it from the beginning up to the Oscar for 'My Heart Will Go On' of the film TITANIC.
"Yes it's true, there is a lot of tenderness in the characters of this film, it's a bit like my own family - says the director-actress -. Celine Dion, who hasn't seen the film, is basically a woman. I was struck by her early days, they are really fantastic and also her love story because this is also and perhaps above all a love film ".
The fact that Lemercier, with a questionable choice, played the role of Aline herself as a child (she used her partially camouflaged face on a child's body) the director explains it thus: "I didn't want anyone else to play this little girl with crooked teeth and too much hair. I wanted to do it myself, so that when she turns into a prettier young woman, it works better. If I had chosen three or four actors to play her at different ages, it wouldn't have been the same. Also, the kids - he jokes - they can only work a limited amount of hours a day, while I do eighteen ".