I cannot recall
ever seeing a movie more strikingly beautiful than "Coco Chanel
and Igor Stravinsky," a fictionalized account of a love affair
between the composer and the designer in the 1920s, when the world
was recovering from "the war to end all wars." Marie-Helene
Sulmoni is credited as production designer, and her work is amazing.
She deserves high paise from taking this out of the ordinary, and so
do all the technicians who worked with her.
Director Jan
Kounen, along with screenplay collaborators Chris Greenhalgh, who
wrote the novel based on this footnote (bednote?) to history, and
Carlo de Boutiny, obviously knew how fragile the story was, so they
provided a highly dramatic, beautifully staged opening scene. It's a
warm May 29, 1913, and all of Paris society, in the most fashionable
of gowns, arriving in glorious, if noisy, automobiles, is at the
Theatre des Champs-Elysees for the world premiere of the ballet to
Stravinsky's "Le Sacre du Printemps," ("The Rite of
Spring") presented by Sergei Diaghilev, with choreography by
Vaslav Nijinsky.
Chanel (Anna
Mouglalis) is there, of course, though she is mourning her lover,
Arthur (Boy) Capel, recently killed in an auto accident. Their eyes
meet on occasion as Stravinsky (Mat Mikkelsen) conducts, but his
raucous, atonal music, and the primitive style of the choreography,
and maybe the heat, too, soon has the audience stirred up. After
catcalls, answered by cheers, and loud arguments back and forth, a
riot erupts, and it takes the police to end it.
After that
glorious, remarkable scene, everything speeds up. We go through the
war in a flash of old newsreel clips. Chanel (Anna Mouglalis) becomes
the epitome of cool. Her simple, almost stark, black-and-white
designs are the toast of Paris, her slender figure is everyone's
goal. She wears a half-smile almost constantly, shows little emotion,
stands back with her hands in her pockets. "Don't you like
color?" asks Mrs. Stravinsky, and Chanel's answer is, "Only
if it's black."
After the
Revolution, Stravinsky moves to Paris with his wife and a number of
children. Chanel offers lodging in her fashionable, large, country
home. After a little internal debate, he accepts. The eventual
occurs. Catherine Stravinsky (Elena Morozova), who is not in good
health, spends a lot of time in bed, but it is not long before she
and the children realize what is going on. When she asks her husband
if he and Chanel are being intimate, he hesitates and does not reply.
When she later asks Chanel if she feels guilty about the affair the
reply is an immediate "No."
Chanel's house and
garden are glorious, and Mouglalis looks spectacular in the Chanel
(or Chanel-style) gowns. And while there's a lot of sweating as she
and Mikkelsen show off their supposed passion, it doesn't come across
with much steam, not even when she interrupts his practicing and is
in such haste that the piano bench serves as a passion pit.
The affair wanes,
as such things do, and Stravinsky proves he has had little experience
with women when, during an argument, he snaps, "You're not an
artist. You're a shopkeeper."
That's when it's
time to bring in the clowns.
"Coco
Chanel and Igor Stravinsky" opens today
–Joe