Movie Review: Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky Tries to Revive 'La Petite Mort'

The clothing industry was ripe for the picking when a strong woman named Coco Chanel set the fashion world on fire with her sewing machine and hand embroidery. She set women free and did for the clothing industry what Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie style did for architecture. Their infusion of freshness resonates still.  Coco Chanel and haute couture were born, fertilized and thrived in French soil. The influence of Chanel classic clothing and prêt-a-porter still imitated but unequaled. So, it is no wonder that there has been a bevy of biopics about a woman named Coco Chanel. There was Coco (made-for-TV movie Starring Shirley McLaine) Coco Before Chanel (Audrey Tautou), and now what I call Coco After Chanel or Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, directed by Jan Kounen.

The film opens with a recreation of Stravinsky’s controversial 1913 debut of Rite of Spring.  It is the very best part of this movie. Igor Stravinsky (Mads Mikkelsen) seeks to make the old new with an opera in Native American costume, performed by the Ballets Russes. He wants to open eyes with it. But this is not what his audience wants. It is not classical French ballet. What was Igor thinking? Because not only are the French the garment game changers they are also master of the ballet. On stage the dancers jump up and down, sway to-and-fro amidst rising catcalls. Fights break out in the audience and the cops bust through the front door. Lights on, opera off to a very strange start; where Igor wants to be modern he fails with this precocious try. Coco Chanel (Anna Mouglalis) sits startled but deeply impressed in the audience; they have not met…yet.

Igor and Coco are soon introduced at a fancy salon party. The affair is on.  At the first rendezvous she proposes that he move into her chateau, tubercular wife and all. He accepts. Igor and Coco are both distinguished artists in their field now and under the same sexual roof the tempo increases. Coco walks to Igor’s room one night, a cappella they make love on the floor. Alone, Catherine Stravinsky (Elena Morozova) eventually hears this music when Coco interrupts Igor’s composing. Was there love between the couple? Love is not inferred in Kounen’s film.  It eschews love and instead tries to revive la petit mort between the two by dropping drawers in nude love scenes and rising libido but fails to impress. We follow this terminal love triangle that enthralls temporarily. Then the movie pushes back our attention on sex to the affair’s affect on both careers.

Article Author: Heloise

Author, writer, teacher, blogger, keeps a blog The Trough where she writes. She combines spirituality and politics as no other. She is a native of Chicago, who prefers walking as exercise. The author has a B.S., biology and M.A., anthropology, certified science and french teacher.
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