Perfect cast and a good story

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

A Disappointing Continuation

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The focus of this movie is on a relationship between the famous composer Igor Stravinsky and the famous fashion designer Coco Chanel. Such talented people usually have strong egos and when they cross the result, as in this movie, can be interesting. The two are attracted to each other on many levels: sex, admiration, standing in society. But they are like two sparing boxers, neither wanting to fully commit. The relationship started with Chanel's being a patron to the extent of inviting Stravinsky's family (wife, two children) to move into her large house. Surely they all knew that that was a dangerous proposition, but one that the cash strapped Stravinsky could hardly refuse at the beginning of his career. Chanel is presented as being an independent woman who, in the early 20th Century, would easily qualify as a 21st Century feminist. Stravinsky's wife knew what was going on and when she asked Chanel if she ever felt guilty, her answer was "no." But Coco's subsequent subtle facial expressions made me feel that than answer was maybe not 100% true, but it was only a momentary lapse as she soon walked confidently off. Anna Mouglalis, as Coco, turned in an outstanding performance. Don't know if she captured the real Coco, but she created a fascinating character and her performance is what made the movie for me. As Stravinsky Mads Mikkelsen portrays a more somber and conflicted personality. A relationship between two such talented and driven people could hardly be sustained and it fell apart in the wake of a single comment made by Stravinsky when he referred to Chanel was a "shopkeeper." Clearly she viewed herself as an artist of equal caliber to Stravinsky and immediately after his comment she told him to get out.The movie begins with a recreation of a stage performance of Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" by the Ballets Russe in Paris in 1913. This composition was so ahead of its time that the audience reaction was one of near riot. I found this production transfixing and am glad that the movie gave it some twenty minutes. I wish I could see their entire production, but I was happy to get what is here. Usually in films about famous composers you frequently get only brief clips of the works that made the composer famous, but here we were treated to a substantial performance that is not only captivating in its own right, but showed us early on what Stravinsky was capable of. And much of Stravinsky's music provides the basis for the score.In biographies like this I always wonder just how much is true. But that doesn't really matter in this case. It's interesting to imagine what would happen when a famous composer and famous fashion designer meet up. This artfully crafted and lushly filmed movie is one imagining of that.

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky'I feel as if I hardly know you'--quote from Mrs. Stravinsky, and an apt description of how the viewer will probably feel about Mr. Stravinsky in this film.Coco Chanel never married but had a long string of affairs. Later in life she talked about them and claimed to have been the mistress of quite a few men--one of which was Igor Stravinsky. According to Stravinsky's second wife, this affair never occurred. However, wife #2 was definitely his mistress for many years before his first wife died and this mistress became wife #2. So, while we don't know for sure that Chanel was telling the truth, Stravinsky was not a faithful husband. So, the historical accuracy of this film is unknown--though the events surrounding this did occur. It is true that Chanel invited the Stravinsky family to live with her and she was his patron during a rough patch in Stravinsky's career.So does all this make a compelling picture? Well, if your only goal in a film is to see Mads Mikkelsen (Stravinsky) naked, then this film is for you. However, I found the film to be completely devoid in energy and emotion. As for the steamy sex, believe it or not, it was quite boring. As for me, I have no idea why this film was made. It is too unappealing and slow to interest most folks and although the acting was nice (particularly Mikkelsen as he did a good job at the piano and spoke several different languages in the movie), I just cannot recommend the film. A clear miss.

COCO CHANEL & IGOR STRAVINSKY is a sumptuously beautiful film to watch - all artsy art nouveau decor, almost devoid of conversation, with captiating portrayals of two of the 20th century's most creative talents - Coco and Igor - played with distant but memorable acting by Anna Mouglalis and Mads Mikkelsen. And there is enough of the core star (Stravinsky's 'Le sacre du printemps') of the 'biography' to make it musically stable. But the problem with this otherwise tasty peak into the lives of Coco and Igor is the lack of accuracy of fact. Perhaps that is what writers Chris Greenhalgh, Carlo De Boutiny, writer/director Jan Kounen had in mind: drop a few elements of fact, mix those with a huge dollop of imagination and create a moment of lust and frustration that usually accompanies the public and private lives of stars. Perhaps in their eyes, fiction is stranger than fact. What we do know is that prior to the May 29, 1913, at the Théatre des Champs-Elysées in Paris scandalous premiere of 'Le sacre du printemps' Igor Stravinsky (Mads Mikkelsen) was a very successful composer of such favorites as 'The Firebird' and 'Petrouska' and before his premiere of 'Le sacre' was presented by the Ballet Russes under the direction of Diagilev (Grigori Manukov) with choreography by the notorious Vaslav Nijinsky (Marek Kossakowski in a very bland portrayal): Stravinsky would later write in his autobiography of the process of working with Nijinsky on the choreography, stating that "the poor boy knew nothing of music" and that Nijinsky "had been saddled with a task beyond his capacity." In the audience is the icy Coco Chanel (Anna Mouglalis) who, still grieving for her deceased lover Boy Patel (Anatole Taubman), connects with the primitive passions of the production. The film then cuts to 1920 with Stravinsky and his four children and tuberculous wife Katerina (Yelena Morozova) barely existing in Paris when Diaghilev introduces Stravinsky to the wealthy patron Coco Chanel who invites the poverty stricken Stravinsky family to stay in her lavish villa outside Paris where Stravinsky composes while Katerina copies her husband's music and Coco keeps her successful Parisian business and seeks out her famous perfume Chanel No. 5. Some history books (including memoirs by Stravinsky himself) state that the stay lasted for only 2 weeks and that the two were simply close friends, but the creators of the film would have us believe that a torrid love affair occurred under the eyes of Katerina, a lusty sexual fulfilling of a need for both geniuses which ends in Katerina and the children moving out to Biarritz and distance develops between Igor and Coco: the secretive patronage of Coco to the Ballet Russes is supposed to have allowed a new performance of the 'Sacre' with costumes designed by Chanel and re-choreographed by Leonid Massine - the truth of these elements cannot be proved. So what we have here is a two hour nearly wordless study of the needs of two famous people colliding in an affair but also focusing the world of Paris' attention on new ways of creativity. Mikkelsen and Mouglalis are terrific if cold, the 'love' scenes are beautifully photographed, and the decor of Chanel's house and all of the costumes are splendid. Gabriel Yared provides a musical score that is based on phrases from Stravinsky and makes for an exciting background for this visual outing. It is worth viewing if only to step inside the Paris of the time of the two main characters. Just don't expect solid facts to reign! Grady Harp

To say a film is strikingly subtle may sound somewhat counterintuitive, yet director Jan Kounen's Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky abounds with such precarious artistic contradictions and exploits them with impressive ease. In fact, it seems hardly accidental that Kounen's chosen tone and aesthetic are not far removed from those of Chanel herself: serene, impeccably beautiful, yet with more than a dash of icy aloofness, with a creeping pace and lengthy silent interludes often occupied by nothing more than characters staring with vaguely furrowed brows. Yet in many ways such stillness and silence serve to articulate volumes about the titular characters, the ambiguity of such an approach allowing the viewer to 'fill in the gaps' and piece together the mystery of the characters in the same way they are prompted to envision almost all narrative context. Kounen's film could hardly be less typical as a biopic in the sense that it eschews any exposition whatsoever, forcing the viewer to independently pursue the cause for Stravinsky's banishment from Russia, Gabrielle Chanel's establishment as an independent fashion designer or the significance of almost every other character in the film – a risky touch which ultimately proves beneficial, adding a more interactive element to the narrative and ultimately trimming all extraneous content to instead dwell on the central emotional arc. Apart from an arresting and mesmerizing 15 minute opening performance of Stravinsky's abrasively modern 'Rite of Spring' ballet and the audience's subsequent cataclysmic uproar, Coco & Igor proves aptly titled, its scope boldly remains one of proximity and intimacy throughout. Concentrating on the passionate affair between the two creative icons, their mutual inspiration and the eventual unravelling of both, Kounen leaves exterior concerns such as the mutual cultural significance of both central characters largely left to the audience to supply, apart from precisely placed thematic nuggets (when Chanel, in a dispute with Stravinsky, articulates her having more money and fame than Stravinsky, the composer spits back "You are not an artist Coco – you are 'une vendeuse de tissues'" – a line whose English translation as 'shopkeep' loses an enormous amount of its acidic contempt).That said, for a film that skims to the bare essentials of story, Kounen's editing could hardly demonstrate a more contrary knack for distilling. With cameras consistently gliding slowly across empty halls, up winding stairwells or past brooding characters, the film's hypnotic slowness and cloistered atmosphere is executed with a largely elegant flair, but with a pace so sluggish it threatens to become still photography on numerous occasions, such an approach feels undeniably excessive and unnecessarily restrained (the film's ending scenes, in particular, are agonizingly slow). Although Kounen's brilliant use of the staggeringly beautiful and concussively powerful music by Stravinsky helps inspire the film with passion and the few yet extensive sex scenes do breathe some well needed fire and rawness into the film, there does remain a sense of corseted formality throughout which detracts from the film's engagement factor, capturing the stiffness of a traditional biography in lieu of its inundation of facts. It is a taxing job indeed to retain audience interest through two largely unlikeable, albeit respectable, characters whose emotions are largely glimpsed in traces of the utmost subtlety under grimly stoic exteriors, yet Anna Mougalis and Mads Mikkelsen prove easily up to the task as Chanel and Stravinsky. Both tremendously capable performers manage to convey so much through a frown, a stare, a wintry smile, that even their character development being reduced to vaguely disconnected actions (Stravinsky's starting the day with a grim routine of push-ups and drinking egg yolks, lying in leafy fields or slowing sinking into a bathtub; Chanel's energetically cutting open corsets, imperiously appraising her workers' nails or secretly, contemptuously donating to Stravinky's 'Rite of Spring' "for myself") seems to betray volumes of inner demons. Similarly, Yelena Morozova delivers an equally remarkable performance as Stravinsky's ill, haunted wife Katarina, her silently accusatory presence constantly looming to the forefront and serving as a constant reminder of the off centre moral core of the affair and wounded protagonists. Mesmerizing, daringly sparse and elegant to a tee, Coco & Igor channels the poise and essence of a Chanel concoction at the cost of lacking somewhat of the innovative fury of a Stravinsky effort. While hardly the most informative in regards to the factual history of either character, Kounen's film proves more telling of the pain and passion of either figure than any factual account could be, ultimately proving a serenely audacious and ambiguously compelling success in the vein of either subject.-8/10