Coco Before Chanel (2009)

Pretty much everything about this movie is perfect. The costumes, the hairstyles, the cinematography, the story and it is just over all a very beautiful film. The only problem is, its slightly boring.

Gabrielle, nickname Coco (Audrey Tautou), and her sister (Marie Gallain) grow up as orphans and later make money as seamstresses during the day and singing at a bar by night. When her sister leaves her to get married to a baron, Coco decides to leave, too. She stays with a friend/lover where she meats the man that helps her change her life.

As I said, Coco before Chanel is a stunningly beautiful film. The costumes are obviously a huge part of the films look but I also loved the hairstyles. Cocos whole style is just gorgeous. I am so glad that it was filmed in French, which gives it a sort of authenticity that an English version would have lacked. Audrey Tautou is great, as always. She has such a strong presence on screen and is just so beautiful to watch.

Watching Gabrielle grow into Coco is very inspiring. It really shows that you have to stay true to yourself and don't let anyone tell you that you can't do something or shouldn't wear something. The story itself is very interesting but it is told in a very slow way that made me constantly grab my ipad to play Farm Story. That is never a good sign.

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Fmovies: This is rather plodding and very incomplete attempt to capture the life of Coco Chanel. If you enjoy seeing her hobnob with the lesser known idle French aristocrats you may like it. I have to agree with other comments here that film makers always seem to avoid a discussion of her collaboration with the Nazis in WWII, something which caused her to leave France for nine years after the war. The closing summary of the film lauds her for her contributions to the fashion world without mentioning her shameful actions in WWII. Even recent "documentaries" about her seem to dodge the subject also. But it is well documented indeed. They should have given us a balanced, warts and all treatment. See the London Times article of April 4, 2009 "Chanel and the Nazis". This excerpt is particularly relevant: "Perhaps Chanel-lovers also have no idea that she tried to wrest control of her perfume manufacturing from a Jewish family, taking advantage of pro-Aryan laws. Or that she was arrested for war crimes - and then mysteriously released. Previously, I'd seen it mentioned that Chanel had survived the war rather comfortably at the Paris Ritz in the arms of a Nazi officer, Hans Gunther von Dincklage, and then gone into exile in Switzerland with him, but a few hours spent in the library revealed that she was far more deeply involved with the Germans than that. There was even a (somewhat ridiculous) Nazi plot, using Chanel as bait, called "Operation Modelhut"." (From Chanel & the Nazis" by Kate Muir, London Times, April 4, 2009.

What do you want in a foreign period film? Beautiful locations? Check. Class struggle? Check. Subtitles? Check. All that's missing is urgency.

Coco Chanel is a French legend. The designer of the ground-breaking haute couture style, creator of the huge fashion brand Chanel, and a forward-thinker in terms of women's independence. Chanel is a complex and dynamic personality. Makes me want to see a movie called "Coco During Chanel". But "Coco Before Chanel"? Not so much.

Audrey Tautou does a commendable job of playing Chanel in her early years (and looks a lot like Chanel in the movie's later scenes). Adding complications to the idea is the fact that there is little known about Chanel's youth, and what is known often has conflicting stories. But be prepared, what does happen in "Coco Before Chanel", happens slowly. This, in a movie that portrays the French elite as people with crazy money, outlandish parties and a constant desire to quench their boredom. I desired the same.

Although she often denied it, Chanel was brought to an orphanage early in life (this was denied mainly to prevent preconceptions of her as an undesirable). The film sharply cuts to late teens/early twenties Coco (real name, Gabrielle), singing with her sister in clubs to make a buck. It was the plight of women in the 1890s to find a man or fear being lost in society. Coco's sister was beholden to a man for thirty years, and he FINALLY married her after his parents died so he wouldn't have to explain to them that he married an orphan (for shame!). This assnine mentality is certainly worth rebelling against, but Coco remains passive for too much of the movie. She is taken in by a wild playboy named Balsan (expertly played by Benoit Poelvoorde) and is mistreated by him for years. Chanel wants to answer to no man and wants to design clothes that avoid the feathers and corset that alter a woman's natural body. But again, this is done with little dramatic flair and many, many pages of slow-moving script. Coco came off as a little too inert for a little too long.

This movie is the first of the late-year potential Oscar nominees. Tautou's performance is a maybe, but the costume design is a sure thing, and rightfully so. The Chanel style is famous, they have to nail it, and they did, while also building gorgeous period outfits for the rich, end-of-century French culture and a few military outfits as well.

The score by Alexandre Desplat does a lot to enhance a few of the scenes, and the cinematography is lush. I want to give a special nod to Alessandro Nivola, who's very good here and very good in everything, but the guy doesn't appear in enough high-profile stuff. He sits very comfortably in the French language here and smolders in some of his more romantic moments like a poor man's Ralph Fiennes.

A traumatic event late in the film propels Coco to launch into her designing full speed. That moment felt a little rushed and the whole ending follows suit. What I wanted at the end was the "Coco During Chanel" movie to start, so, then, that could be kind of a success for the film? But remember, I wanted "Coco During Chanel" going in, so really, the whole 'before' story just felt like slow filler. Frills, perhaps? Padding?

Coco Before Chanel fmovies. "Coco before Chanel" is exactly that; the life of an impoverished girl up until the start of what became a fashion empire.

This I must say is a different kind of a biopic. There was some sort of subtleness about it, everything was going too slow and not much was happening in terms of demonstrating that this hopeless little girl from nowhere had this extraordinary talent for cloth-making. Yes we did see her advocating simplicity in times of great extravagance and even dressing up (probably) her first clients but had the viewer not been aware of the brand "Chanel" he or she would have to wait until the finishing titles to realise Coco turned out to become a fashion icon.

If there is one thing about Coco is that she was a rebel; in a late 19th century puritan society she stood up for what she believed, refused to get married and instead of settling for a wedlock with a rich spouse she chose to live the adventure, go to Paris and start up a hat shop.

It seems however that her rebellious nature extended to her design skills. To use her own words: "Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance." Coco Chanel always kept the clothing she designed simple, comfortable and revealing. Unlike most designers in that Europe, she kept the woman inside the clothes at the center of her creations. "I gave women a sense of freedom; I gave them back their bodies: bodies that were drenched in sweat, due to fashion's finery, lace, corsets, underclothes, padding." Perhaps it was fate or desperation from her impoverished upbringing but the affair with the playboy millionaire and, later, his best friend were pivotal to give her the push she needed to make a start. Though not an expert on French upper class culture but were quite impressed how civilized and elegant the two men were when it came to loving and pursuing the same woman.

All in all a decent film but no wow factor.

Directed by Anne Fontaine and based upon the book by Edmonde Charles-Roux, Coco Before Chanel is a biographical tale of Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel set a timeline which is just that, before she founded the fashion empire. So for those who are more intrigued about the fashion world and the impact Chanel has on it, then this is not the movie you're looking for, as it firmly dwells on Coco as a person, and her romantic dalliances with two men who played significant roles in her life, be it in support of her daily sustenance, or inspiring and providing fuel for her desire to make a name for herself.

The film dedicated plenty of time in Coco's awakening toward the French high life of the time, since she became a voluntary kept mistress of rich playboy Etienne Balsan (Benoit Poelvoorde), who in a way had rescued her from poverty, and whose riches afforded to her provided that access to the slacker lifestyles of the rich and famous. The audience too get reminded time and again of how stifling a woman's place in high society was at the turn of the century, made worse by the restrictive clothing like corsets, frills, and lace from the neck right down to sweeping the floors. Coco's disdain and penchant for freedom led to bold designs that do not conform, starting from her hats which provided her some attention and notoriety even.

As Coco Chanel, Audrey Tautou epitomizes that level of elegance, vulnerability and rebellious streak to do things differently. Her petiteness and somewhat boyish cut figure probably suited the role really well as the initial designs by Coco were those inspired by menswear, though you only get glimpses of her design genius from short montages scattered throughout, and from some scenes which show her working at a tailor shop, but other than that you will gain very little from this bio-pic other than the messy love life that she got herself into, first with benefactor of sorts Etienne, who treated her nothing more than an object to bed in exchange for lodging, then Alessandro Nivola's Arthur "Boy"Capel, a businessman with whom she falls head over heels with. The romances do make you wonder about how careless the treatment of emotions are, where love and issues of marriage are quite trivially handled.

While Anne Fontaine nailed down the look of the film, the feel somehow was found to be lacking, as apart from the romantic angle, nothing else really rang through until the last act, which was a very hastily down finale to show the tremendous progress Coco had undergone once she had closed her heart, where she had broken through a society and introduced radical changes to an industry, from hats to influencing a lot more in the fashion world. How she did exactly that, is best left to another film because this one had little else other than repeated shots of scissors going through fabric.

Without a doubt the clothes here are the star of the show, from the fashions of societal norms in both directions of the rich-poor spectrum, to Coco Chanel's designs for her own with her menswear inspired pieces, and unfortunately, the glamour-chic pieces only making it through in a parting shot at the finale, since the founding of the business empire was grossly passed over deliberately. The opulently designed clothes of that era stand in stark contrast to the Chanel pieces, which celebrates sheer beauty and elegance in their simplicity, and probably from there, stamping its mark on the fashion industry.

Don't approach this film with an expectation that y

Coco avant Chanel focuses, quite literally, on the roots of Coco before the whole Chanel business.

I noted the movie seemed to frustrate those with no grasp of the French language at all. Many seemed to go in unaware that the movie was set before her 'Chanel' days and I couldn't help but feel a sense of disappointment at the end from others; via looking at their faces, overhearing conversations and talking with friends. It's interesting, but it does plod on very slowly.

We are treated to a very rude, harsh character in Coco. Full credit goes to Audrey Tautou for her performance though. She really does fit into this movie's feel and tone very well. Her cheeky performance is definitely a highlight.

I don't know what to make of Alessandro Nivola as 'Boy'. The character was and looked rather sleazy. I'm not sure if that was meant or if that was Alessandro. Other than that, mentions go to Benoît Poelvoorde for his solid performance and Emmanuelle Devos as the sexy and self-assured Emilienne d'Alençon.

Other than that, it's a solid biopic. 7/10