Coco Before Chanel

Ok, a foreign movie. I was a little apprehensive to watch this. A movie about a designer and it is in French, but it was well worth it. This was one tough cookie and I'm sure it took that to make something for a woman in a man's world.

Directed by Anne Fontaine and starring AudreyTautou. This film follows the life of Coco Chanel from poor singing in bars to creating her own clothing in Paris. She struggles with social boundaries and weasels her way in the bed of a rich man, Benoit Poelvoorde, and eventually in his huge house. In a period coming out of the Victorian era, she pushed the fashion boundaries and changed the way women dressed. As she remains entertainment and tailor to continue residency in a huge mansion, she falls in love with Arthur 'Boy' Capel (Alessandro Nivola). Realizing that she will never be the wife of these wealthy gentlemen she decides to head to Paris and pursue creating her own endeavors in the fashion industry. She becomes famous for creating hats for wealthy women and eventually her clothing that changes the way women dress.









I really enjoyed watching this film. I did not think that I would though. I like foreign films a lot but you kind of have to be in the right mood to watch one. Which is horrible, the whole rest of the world watches our movies and reads subtitles all of the time, but we bitch about having to do it at all. We as Americans are so pompous. Anyway, I got off track. I thought that the camera angles were brilliant in this film and helped to show the social status difference between Coco and the rest of the wealthy that she was around. The camera seemed to be looking down on her and then showed lots of background to make her seem small. Her differences in the end make her bigger than anyone else though and the camera angles show her power. It is cool that the camera can establish so much.


I would recommend this movie to anyone, but this is a movie that I don't think everyone is going to like. It is kind of a girly movie but it shows a really cool transitional period where everything changed out of the Victorian era. I think that it is awesome to see someone that challenges the "norm" in daily life and completely changes the view of everyone else. There is a quote I love but not sure who said it, "If you don't like what people are saying about you, change the conversation", I think that this is exactly what she did for fashion. After all, what people say about you is none of your business. She held her head high and did not let anything let her spirits down. It is almost like she knew what she was supposed to do in life.