This movie is often very beautiful to look at. Some of the camera-work is innovative, other times it references famous scenes in previous movies. If this were a silent picture, these things would stand out more and make for a more enjoyable experience.
Because, sadly, the movie is a bore.
It recounts the story of two not particularly attractive and certainly not pleasant individuals who have a lot of very uninteresting and apparently passionless sex that is quite clearly but not at all erotically filmed. There they are again, in bed, completely unclothed, going at it, and I found myself wondering if I should make popcorn. They are presented as they evidently were: two individuals intensely devoted to their work, work that took a lot of solitary creation. When they have sex, it is as if Stravinsky does it, quite methodically, in order to get rid of his urges - since he apparently can't have sex with his quietly suffering wife anymore, because of her illness - so that he can get back to his composing. That may be what the movie wanted to suggest. But that doesn't make for a very interesting movie. We never see much of any relationship between him and Chanel, just the sex.
It took me three days to get through the whole thing. I just couldn't keep watching for but so long at a stretch, and only finished it so that I hadn't totally wasted my money on renting it.
"Coco before Chanel" shows that Chanel could be interesting. I'm willing to believe that Stravinsky could be interesting too. But I didn't get that from this movie.
We see Chanel's involvement in the creation of Chanel No. 5, but there's no joy in it, so we don't get excited about it either.
We get even less involved in Stravinsky's composition.
It looks like a Masterpiece Theater where all the money went into the production values and nothing into the script. When you're dealing with two intellectual persons for an audience who, given the subject matter, is likely to be fairly intellectual themselves, this is not a good thing.
Because, sadly, the movie is a bore.
It recounts the story of two not particularly attractive and certainly not pleasant individuals who have a lot of very uninteresting and apparently passionless sex that is quite clearly but not at all erotically filmed. There they are again, in bed, completely unclothed, going at it, and I found myself wondering if I should make popcorn. They are presented as they evidently were: two individuals intensely devoted to their work, work that took a lot of solitary creation. When they have sex, it is as if Stravinsky does it, quite methodically, in order to get rid of his urges - since he apparently can't have sex with his quietly suffering wife anymore, because of her illness - so that he can get back to his composing. That may be what the movie wanted to suggest. But that doesn't make for a very interesting movie. We never see much of any relationship between him and Chanel, just the sex.
It took me three days to get through the whole thing. I just couldn't keep watching for but so long at a stretch, and only finished it so that I hadn't totally wasted my money on renting it.
"Coco before Chanel" shows that Chanel could be interesting. I'm willing to believe that Stravinsky could be interesting too. But I didn't get that from this movie.
We see Chanel's involvement in the creation of Chanel No. 5, but there's no joy in it, so we don't get excited about it either.
We get even less involved in Stravinsky's composition.
It looks like a Masterpiece Theater where all the money went into the production values and nothing into the script. When you're dealing with two intellectual persons for an audience who, given the subject matter, is likely to be fairly intellectual themselves, this is not a good thing.