Another Chanel
Last week I went for screening of the other Chanel movie —- ‘Coco & Igor’. Indeed a powerful movie that I felt even more powerful than ‘Coco Avant Chanel’, which was wide released last year in UK. 2 Chanel movies were actually being film around similar time. But both team were really supportive to each other like one family. They would stand up for each other when unnecessary comments attacked both movies.
This movie opened up with moving snow-flake-and-arabian-like patterns and Coco was rushing to theatre after meeting her long-term lover ‘boy’. This scene was captured in ‘Coco Avant Chanel’ towards the end. She was about to experience the issonance of the score and the shocking choreography of ‘The Rite of Spring’ by Igor Stravinsky. It takes 7 years before they meet again in Paris – now Chanel is both rich and respected (and moaning for ‘boy’s accidental death), whereas Stravinsky is living in exile as a penniless refugee. There is an immediate powerful attraction and she decides to shelter Stravinsky, offering him her villa ‘Bel Respiro’ as a sanctuary for his composing, as Chanel herself begins creating the revolutionary iconic perfume No.5. Stravinsky moves in straight away, with his children and consumptive wife. And so a passionate, fiery love affair between two creative giants commence…
I felt the script and dialogue was very well considered and composed, they were short but full of psychological tricks. Here’re a few moments I’ve memorized and would like to share.
Moment 1:
After Coco and Igor re-met each other 7 years later, she made an appointment with him to meet in a museum and of course she was fashionably late… (don’t know how long) However, she walked in and laid her steady eye-attention on him. Nothing apologetic, she simply said ‘I Am Late’.
Moment 2:
She walked downstairs in the middle of night in a gorgeous silk night gown, floor length, embellished, with tiny button fastening around neck. She stared into Igor’s eyes quietly and unbuttoned gracefully and stood naked in front him…(only physical dialogue)
Moment 3:
Igor was playing piano in a ground-floor room and Chanel returned. She sat on him with her back against piano. Her skirt was lifted up showing white crochet stockings. The poor wife sitting in bed upstairs clearly noticed the piano has stopped, but could not come down to stop anything. I felt her pain, because she couldn’t do anything there. It would be even more painful situation if she physically saw. (again…only physical dialogue.)
Moment 4:
The poor wife decided to leave Igor and took all 4 children with her. At the door step of Chanel’s villa, her last word to Igor was ‘I love you’. The man didn’t return any word.
Moment 5:
After the wife’s departure, Igor saw Chanel in the garden and followed her into the woods. He wanted to kiss her and she pushed her out, once and twice…She had to refuse it. I know the woman must feel that she could predict everything from Igor and he became less interesting. He had eventually finished a masterpiece and felt exhausted and fell in bed in his dirty clothes. It was Chanel who called him up and put him into bath and later left a kiss on his forehead. I know, by that time, all Chanel could feel for Igor was caring and understanding. However the passion of love has not only slowly disappearing but also had to be forced to burry down after she read the last letter left on her bed by the wife. By this stage, it was actually the quiet wife who was seemingly weak and depended and a character completely opposite of Chanel, has finally won this moral fight. Yes, she is weak, ugly and unattractive and depended, but it somehow reminds me of a famous saying—-sometimes, the weakest power could be the strongest.
If Audrey Tautou has successfully portrayed a younger Chanel from beginning of her grand career, Anna Mouglalis in the movie, has completely sculpted up a closest image of Chanel from later stage—–who is confident, cold, passionate and graceful. She has got a most smokey French voice. Mads Mikkelsen as Igor was also a very strong character. I’ve always loved him ever since the Bond Movie ‘Casino Royale’.
Overall, it’s a very artistic movie which has a perfect flow on language using. It has started in English but slowly changed into French and Russion with english subtitle. However you could barely feel tiring from reading the lines, because as I said above, all dialogue are considerably short and well composed. I couldn’t help but put a short a comments on Facebook that night—–a very French movie, lots of shagging and little conversation.
