It's not that I'm complaining in any way but I do admit to being rather curious about why there are so many Chanel movies lately.
I just saw the latest one, Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky, which explores their relationship and affair. I think, frankly, I would have preferred an exploration of her relationship to her house. From the outside it looks like a perfectly ordinary country house but for the window frames which are painted black which in 1920 was quite forward, or so exclaims the oh so conventional Mrs. Stravinsky.
Step inside, however, and there you are introduced to the magnificence of art deco! All the walls are painted cream with black bands painted in place of the more staid crown molding that would have been there. The room given to the Stravinsky's is a vision-cream and black striped wallpaper or paint cover 2 walls and cream black and silver cubes cover the other 2. The headboard is a sky scraper of black glass and chrome edging, as is the dressing table. The armoire is black with cream doors and black handles. Chanel's bedroom is black and cream with camel accessories-screens and rugs and furniture in black and tan and tan and black. The study Chanel gives Stravinsky has the same cream walls with black lines painted top and bottom but with geometric patterns of black cubes and dripping squiggly lines in each corner intersection. I gasped when the room appeared in it's first scene.
Anna Mouglalis, the actress who plays Chanel here doesn't really give you the feeling that she is Chanel (unlike Audrey Tautou who really embodies the essence of Chanel in the last of the newest movies, Coco Avant Chanel) but she is really a fashion sketch of 1920 masquerading as a fashion designer. Her gorgeous flapper ensembles hang just so from narrow shoulders and she uses anything at hand on which to maneuver her pose, even the air in the middle of a room. The House of Chanel opened it's archives for the movie which makes a difference.
Then there is the sex. Also modern and art deco-though to my friend and me it looked uncomfortable and boring nor did Coco or Igor look like they were enjoying it very much, making it so very modern so DECO that if you aren't cool enough to get it...don't ask.
The theater in which Stravinsky'sand Nijinsky's disastrous ballet, The Rites of Spring (S wrote the music which in 1913 was such a radical departure from the standard Parisian balled the audience jeered, got into fist fights, and walked out) was another glorious representation of early art deco with trimmings and cutouts everywere in brass or wood.
I thought Anna Mouglalis was not very good as Chanel, Stravinsky was horrid-morose, boring, and stereotyped (what artist portrayed in a movie does not get frustrated at life and sweep his arm across his desk, flinging all the contents smashing to the floor)? Who would want to have an affair with him? Who wouldn't be afraid to muss up Mademoiselle's clothes or pose?
Visually this movie is stunning and has quickly become my absolute favorite movie ever. If only there was no script it would have been perfect.
