Audrey Tautou smolders as fashion-icon-to-be Coco Chanel in the film “Coco Before Chanel.”
Audrey Tautou smolders as fashion-icon-to-be Coco Chanel in the film “Coco Before Chanel.”
“Coco Before Chanel” offers an enlightening peek into the early life and sartorial origins of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, one of fashion’s modern masters.
Starring Audrey Tautou (“Amelie”), the film starts at Chanel’s childhood in a convent school, then jumps to her 20s as a would-be cabaret singer and seamstress.
(It is in a smoky cabaret that Chanel is dubbed “Coco,” by the flirtatious Baron Balsan, so named for the song she and her sister Adrienne sing for drunken soldiers).
Depositing herself at Balsan’s pastoral estate outside of Paris, Chanel becomes his live-in lover. With blunt conversation and a no-nonsense manner, Coco finds herself at the center of Balsan’s decadent social circle, where she eventually (seemingly grudgingly, and in the end, tragically) falls in love with coal magnate Arthur “Boy” Capel.
It’s hard to realize just how groundbreaking Chanel’s work was until you see it compared to the fashions of the day. Dancing with her lover amid a sea of pearls and white lace, Chanel’s plunging black gown is bold, daring, and oh-so-modern.
In a scene by the sea, she scoffs at the women’s opulent gowns and jewelry (“Look, she’s wearing her silverware”), and lacy oversize hats that “look like meringue,” and instead finds inspiration in fishermen’s simple boatneck shirts.
Audrey Tautou fans used to seeing the actress in a more bright and bubbly persona may find this movie jarring as Tautou is stern, somber and rarely smiles throughout the film. But Tautou speaks volumes with her eyes, and brings to the role intensity and determination for which Chanel was well known.
Fans of fashion and French culture will want to make time for “Coco Before Chanel.”
© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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