Coco Before Chanel
Coco Before Chanel
Written on the 1st of June 2009 by Rachel Quilty
Gain a insight into how Coco Chanel become one of couture?s most important icons?. This new film is a French bio movie of fashion designer Coco Chanel, the only fashion designer to make TIME Magazine?s 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
Audrey Tautou (The Davinci Code, Amelie) plays the legendary "Coco" Chanel in an enthralling exploration of her early life before she rose to worldwide fame as the most celebrated fashion designer of the 20th Century. We meet the young Gabrielle Chanel, illegitimate daughter of a travelling salesman who learns to sew in a Catholic orphanage before following her singing ambitions lead her to a cabaret club. It is here where Chanel earns the nickname ‘Coco’ and also where she catches the eye of several high society gentlemen who would ignite her passion and become instrumental in the development of her remarkable career.
Variety Review:
More sentimental than chic, Gallic biopic "Coco Before Chanel" nonetheless knits a convincing portrait of the designer’s journey from her humble beginnings as a provincial seamstress to the halls of Parisian haute couture. Focusing on the era in which Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel (winningly played by Audrey Tautou) served as mistress of an eccentric millionaire, the film reveals, via meticulous period imagery, how the couturier forged a style that would change the way women dressed in the 20th century.
The first of two Chanel biopics skedded to hit screens this year, this one, co-written by helmer Anne Fontaine and her sister Camille, limits its scope to the time in the designer’s late 20s when she began showcasing her distinct creative voice. The opening, purely visual flashback shows the young Chanel arriving at an ominous Catholic orphanage after her mother has died and her father has left to support the family.
The stark setting and drab religious garb — superbly rendered by production designer Olivier Radot and costume designer Catherine Leterrier — will have an enduring impact on her future designs, whose cornerstones will be simplicity and sophistication.
The young Gabrielle Chanel is the illegitimate daughter of a travelling salesman who learns to sew in a Catholic orphanage.
The action then jumps to a decade or so later, as busy bee Chanel (Tautou) is working days as a seamstress and nights as a cabaret entertainer ("to pay for her dresses"), alongside her sis, Adrienne (Marie Gillain). She earns the nickname ‘Coco’ at a cabaret club where she is following her singing ambitions and it is also where she catches the eye of several high society gentlemen who would ignite her passion and become instrumental in the development of her remarkable career. During a fun and flashy dance number, she crosses paths with debauched heir Etienne Balsan (Benoit Poelvoorde); before long, she’s moved to his country estate, where she serves as his friend, mistress and in house style consultant.
Caught in a lavish world where women overdress themselves in bails of lace, suffocating corsets and hats oozing with flowers, Chanel begins to experiment with her lover’s clothing, designing outfits that are both easier to wear and easier on the eye. These sequences are among the film’s strongest, revealing the contrast between the heavy 19th-century styles worn by the epoch’s wealthier class and Chanel’s vision of a sleek, intelligent wardrobe to help place women on an equal footing with men.
Pic’s third section brings a melodramatic twist to Chanel’s sudden and impossible affair with a British industrialist (Alessandro Nivola). The drawing-room drama and ensuing love triangle feel a tad forced, but they do explain how Chanel is pushed to liberate herself from kept-woman status through her relentless work ethic and gifted eye.
