"You're just a shopkeeper."
Most of us tend to think of Coco Chanel as the last actress who portrayed her in
the movies. The most recent of these was Audrey Tautou a year or so ago. Tautou
struck a marvelous balance between Chanel's driving ambition and her admiration
of simplicity and elegance. In that movie, Chanel became a strong, but delicate
presence as we followed her progress from poverty to early success.
In "Coco
Chanel and Igor Stravinski" we meet the designer, played here by Anna Mouglalis,
at the top of her game when she is anything but delicate. As the movie opens,
she is sitting in the audience for the opening of Igor Stravinski's "Rite of
Spring" the dissonant music that caused, along with Najinski's choreography, a
riot of anger in the theater, the streets, and the newspapers of Paris in 1913.
As Chanel
listens in calm self-confidence through the concert and the ensuing riot, we
understand quickly that she will become his champion. She offers the use of her
villa to Stravinski and his family - a magnificent country house where the
children can play and Stravinski can compose. When the couple begins their
affair nearly under the eyes of Mrs. Stravinski (Elena Morozova), we see a
couple surrendering to lust, each wrapped in a monumental and creative ego.
Can you
imagine what happens when the woman who has been dealing with her lover as his
creative equal hears him say, in the heat of argument, "You're just a
shopkeeper." This to the woman who quite literally liberated women from the
corsets and yards of cloth that had imprisoned them for generations. Do
anything, but don't dare to criticize his music or her empire.
The problem
with this movie is that there is very little dialogue, and that means it must
move slowly through its length, depending as it does on long pauses, knowing
glances, and plenty of time for severe emotional reactions on everyone's part.
Essential momentum is sacrificed. It's slow, in other words, and the principals
are not the nicest of people. The opening scenes of Stravinski's music are
marvelous as are the ones of his composing in the villa. What's missing here is
more evidence of Chanel's creative genius that could have balanced Stravinski's
ego.
Elena
Morozova is really marvelous as Catherine Stravinski. She handles her husband's
on site betrayal by sitting back, waiting for the whole thing to pass. She never
overplays her character's emotions and understands that Catherine's only
determination is that Chanel not tamper with Stravinski's music. It's a
heartbreaker of a position. Of the three, she is the only admirable, likable
person. The two creative geniuses she is involved with are unappealing human
beings. We should credit Mads Mikkelsen and Anna Mouglalis for creating two
towering 20th century figures. If we can't warm to them as they are portrayed in
this movie, we can certainly admire what each of them did.
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