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The Student News Site of Sacramento City College

The Express

The Student News Site of Sacramento City College

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‘Coco Before Chanel’ review

Audrey Tautou as Coco Chanel
Audrey Tautou as Coco Chanel

After watching, “Coco Before Chanel,” Anne Fountaine’s biopic about Coco Chanel—the prolific women’s fashion designer, one thing is certain: casting Audrey Tautou to portray Chanel is about as genius as the casting of Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan in “I’m Not There”. If you look at both Tautou and Chanel, they look eerily similar.

I’m an enormous fan of both Tautou and Chanel. Tautou’s silent confidence, her stunning looks and her ability to convey emotion through a glance is enjoyable to watch.

The film is adapted from the book, “The Nonconformist” by Edmond Charles-Roux. The film shows Chanel’s early years before her stratospheric life in the fashion world. “Coco Before Chanel” captures Chanel’s life from when she was orphaned at the age of 10, her brief foray as a nightclub singer, and the rise of her social status.

The film mainly focuses on the complications of her loveless relationship with her “sugar daddy,” the Baron Etienne Balsan, played by Benoît Poelvoorde, which is further complicated as she falls head over heels for Balsan’s friend, the extremely charming English businessman Arthur “Boy” Capel, played by Alessandro Nivola.

“You’re right to opt for simplicity,” Boy tells Chanel in the scene of when they first meet and he is right.
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In the times of femininity and lace, Chanel was synonymous with nonconformity as was evident in the film by the way Tautou was dressed. Fountaine executed the idea of nonconformity, well by making Tautou distinctive during a wave of pomp and excessive gaudiness by dressing her in loose clothing that was dark or patterned. This expressed Chanel’s roots of both the androgynous style and the simple, yet elegant look.

Although “Coco Before Chanel” shows Chanel’s distaste for women’s fashion, the story doesn’t work so much because it lacks major conflict. The film mostly consists of images in place of dialogue, thus it falls short of being universally interesting to everyone, as it caters to mostly fashion-driven women and fans of either Chanel or Tatou.

But the film does have breathtaking cinematography, shot by Christopher Beaucarne. Beaucarne’s shots were visually arresting such as the looming shot of Chanel lying at the base of a tree surrounded by autumn leaves, or even the ordinary shot of Chanel standing alone in an open field, which seems to have more depth simplicity. Even though the dialogue wasn’t as memorable as the shots, the images were pleasing to the eye and presented Beaucarne’s gift of focusing on beauty.

Tautou gives a lovely performance as Chanel and when she isn’t speaking, her doe-eyed, furtive glance is enough to convey that Tautou is serious about the role. You can almost understand what Chanel would have felt at the moment just by her body language and the look in her eyes.

Even though the film falls short of promising, it does redeem itself with Tautou and Nivola’s performances, as well with the cinematography and the costume. Despite the fact that “Coco Before Chanel” doesn’t live up to the spectacular name that was Chanel, it was still beautifully crafted like the outfits Chanel created.

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