Coco avant Chanel
So, in case you were wondering, why yes, I did absolutely adore the exquisite film: Coco avant Chanel. (From this point on I feel the need to call it by it’s original french name, for it deserves to be called by so. No need to bring unnecessary English into the examination of a french film.)
Overall, Coco avant Chanel is a story about the early years of French fashion designer Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel and her personal journey through what lead her to be the legend that she is today.
At first, I felt the inclination to call it a love story. She begins her story with a love for her father. The love fails her. She rejects love. Her sister embraces love. She attempts to find love. Love disappoints her. She doesn’t understand love. She searches for love. She finds love. She embraces love. The love dies on her. And finally, she accepts love.
However, based on that, it is less of a love story than it is a story about love. A love story is a story that is centralized around people who find love in each other one way or another. But a story about love is centralized around characters who find love, and simply that.
Coco avant Chanel is about Coco Chanel’s search for love and what that search inspired in her life. The absence and rejection of love left her hurt, and in turn that made her strong. She began to find her own love, from within herself. She loved her individuality and resented anyone who tried to make a mockery of her. Because she loved herself, she was a girl who knew herself. And that’s what made her so successful as an artist and so icon as a designer. She knew what she had was different, but that it wasn’t wrong. She had a vision and it was real and it was true to herself. Coco Chanel was a phenomenal woman who had the utmost confidence in herself, her view of the world, and her abilities.
Audrey Tautou did a brilliant job portraying her. Her performance was miraculous. I can always tell when I watch a movie if the performance is any good when as I watch the actress say the lines and go through the motions, I forget where I am, and the actress then becomes the character. Audrey Tautou became Coco Chanel.
The directing was brilliant in that the themes of the movie shone brightly and the moments that were most important in showing these themes were well emphasized. (SPOILER) Such as her moment with Emiliene in which they discuss what love feels like, and the moment with Arthur (Boy) in which she states “I always knew I’d be nobody’s wife. Sometimes I forget.” Those are moments that stuck out, and for purposeful reasons.
The production design and costumes were visually stunning as well, and may I say perfect for the film.
The ending was literally the best ending to a film I’ve seen in a long time. Coco, as evidenced by the rest of the film, didn’t do anything for anybody else. (SPOILER) As she sat on the stairs, watching the models go by, I thought that was one of the most perfect moments of the film. Then at the end, she smiles. The audience rarely saw Coco smile, for she is a woman who only smiles when she means it. She meant it then, and it showed. It was absolutely breathtaking.
I thought it was a very successful film which brought to light the human within this non-fictional woman we know and love. Bringing out the “human” is a very difficult thing to do with stories involving real, actual people. It’s difficult to integrate both human emotion felt by these people with the audience’s interpretation of these characters. Nevertheless combine these things with the magic and art of film. And Coco avant Chanel perfectly combined art with human nature, and thus, making human nature itself the art.
