Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky [Blu-ray]

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Description

The big-than-life personalities of the fashion designer Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel and the composer Igor Stravinsky light up the period drama Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, which is rich in visual and musical details. The captivating French actress Anna Mouglalis provides her Coco a cool, steely elegance, a chilliness this pervades even the widespread and erotic love scenes. The Danish actor Mads Mikkelson plays Stravinsky, a tortured Russian composer who nonetheless has a relatively normal family life and an adoring wife. Stravinsky's and Chanel's worlds first collide in 1913, when the Ballets Russes first perform Stravinsky's avant-garde Rite of Spring in Paris, where high society is scandalized, but where Chanel becomes enchanted and intrigued together with Stravinsky's music. The Dutch director Jan Kounen wisely lets Stravinsky's magical, compelling music unfold at its own rate; the ballet and music of Spring get up nearly 20 minutes of the beginning of the film. It's enough to captivate Chanel. Years later, the two meet again when Stravinsky is a penniless émigré in Paris afterwards the Bolshevik Revolution. The two initiate a cautious but purposeful dance--two independent, creative brains this cannot be constrained by social niceties or conventions. One time Chanel moves Stravinsky and his family into her country estate as a "patroness," an affair perhaps becomes inevitable. And the sensuality of the photography, the costumes, the music, and the love scenes is undeniable. One begins to wish, however, this the direction would be as crisp as the endless piles of brown leaves in which the brooding Stravinsky is shown lying, contemplating, always contemplating. Perhaps the fact this two intriguing artists of the 20th century collided and struck up an affair is not quite enough to hold mutually a film. And yet fans of Stravinsky and Chanel, as well as of 20th-century modernism, will locate much to admire in Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky. --A.T. Hurley

Customer Reviews

"I am an artist...you are a shopkeeper" - 2010-06-19

By Gerard D. Launay (Berkeley, California)

This is a beautifully filmed biopic of the steamy affair between Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky. As depicted in the film, when the controversial "Rite of Spring" was first produced by the Ballets Russes in 1913, Chanel was one of the few in the audience who was deeply impressed by the composer's genius. From that event, she thereafter invites Igor Stravinsky to be a quasi-permanent guest at her villa in the country; it is there she seduces the maestro.

I wanted to like the picture more than I did. Certainly the music of the "Rite of Spring" - which holds the picture together - is intrinsically thrilling and dramatic. The glimpse of the ballet as it may have been initially produced is intriguing. (For the full ballet, I do recommend the recently released: "Stravinsky and the Ballets Russes" on DVD.)

But ultimately the story does not explain how the affair impacted either Stravinsky's or Chanel's individual creative projects. And the affair itself does not light up the screen - it is almost lukewarm.

The quote I picked for the title of this review is the line that shocked me in the film - when Stravinsky quips at Coco Chanel...and wrongfully at that. Everyone in fashion understands how much of a genius and artist Chanel was. Indeed the gorgeous villa that Chanel decorated is explicitly shown in the movie. It clearly exhibits the bold, simplistic, immeasurably compelling talent of Chanel. The film - which I said earlier is beautifully shot - shows the performance in the Opera House in the Champs-Elysee. It also uses historic costumes from the real Chanel collections.

A theme in the latter half of the picture is the impact of the love affair on the neglected wife of Stravinsky who was dangerously ill; the wife's accusations of immorality against Coco Chanel do not phase the couturier. After all, Chanel apologizes to no one for her independence.

Nonetheless, my favorite Chanel movie remains the documentary - "Chanel, Chanel." And as fictional drama, I actually did prefer "Coco Before Chanel", a movie most highly recommended by Roger Ebert. But Chanel enthusiasts wil see "Coco Chanel and Igor Stravnisky" ...definitely.

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