Coco Before Chanel

Coco avant Chanel

France

2009

105 Min

Color

2.35:1

French

Currently 3.0/5 Stars.
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PROD Caroline Benjo, Philippe Carcassonne, Carole Scotta, Simon Arnal

SCR Edmonde Charles-Roux, Anne Fontaine, Camille Fontaine

CAST Audrey Tautou, Benoît Poelvoorde, Alessandro Nivola, Marie Gillain, Emmanuelle Devos, Régis Royer, Etienne Bartholomeus, Yan Duffas

Several years after leaving the orphanage to which her father never returned for her, Gabrielle Chanel finds herself working in a provincial bar both. She’s both a seamstress for the performers and a singer, earning the nickname Coco from the song she sings nightly with her sister. A liaison with Baron Balsan gives her an entree into French society and a chance to develop her gift for designing increasingly popular hats. When she falls in love with English businessman Arthur Capel further opportunities open up, though life becomes ever more complicated. –IMDb

Director

Anne Fontaine

Anne Fontaine (born in Luxembourg, 1959) is a filmmaker and screenwriter who used to be an actor. She lives and works in France.

Born Fontaine Sibertin-Blanc, sister of actor Jean-Chrétien Sibertin-Blanc, she went as a young child to live in Lisbon, where her father, Antoine Sibertin-Blanc, is a music professor and cathedral organist. In adolescence she moved to Paris and trained in dance with Joseph Russillo while continuing her academic education, including philosophy. Her husband is Philippe Carcassonne, the film producer, and they have an adopted son who was born in Vietnam.

While still dancing, she was picked by Robert Hossein to play Esmeralda in a 1980 theatrical production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame[ and around this time started to use the name Anne Fontaine. She continued with acting and became known for her roles in comedies like Si ma gueule vous plaît… (1981) and P.R.O.F.S.(1985). An opportunity to be assistant director came with a 1986 stage version of… read more

Anne Fontaine (born in Luxembourg, 1959) is a filmmaker and screenwriter who used to be an actor. She lives and works in France.

Fontaine’s first project as solo director, Les histoires d’amour finissent mal… en général (Love Affairs Usually End Badly), won the 1993 Prix Jean Vigo (prize). In 1995, she worked with her brother on the comic Augustin. Two years later, she wrote and directed the successful Nettoyage à Sec (Dry Cleaning). This won the Best Screenplay award at the Venice Film Festival 1997 and is generally considered a milestone on Fontaine’s way to becoming “an important figure in contemporary French cinema”.

In 1999 the character Augustin (Jean-Chrétien Sibertin-Blanc) re-appeared in Fontaine’s film Augustin, Roi Du Kung-Fu (Augustin, King of Kung-Fu). Comment j’ai tué mon père (How I Killed My Father) was released in 2001, and Nathalie… followed in 2003. The 2005 film, Entre Ses Mains (In His Hands) has been widely described as a thriller: an “intimate thriller” according to Fontaine herself. A third Augustin film, Nouvelle chance (also known as Oh La La) was released in 2006. Then came La fille de Monaco (The Girl From Monaco) in 2008 and Coco avant Chanel (Coco Before Chanel), her biopic of Coco Chanel, in 2009.

Fontaine’s work is not easily categorized, though the phrase “psychological drama” is often used. She told a UK newspaper, "I try to work on my characters’ blind side, in a kind of Freudian way: to ask, ‘What are the things about themselves that they’re unaware of? —Wikipedia

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cocoroach chanel

27Dec11

angelicidea

22Dec11

Largely schematic and pretty boring at certain parts.

goeienag

28Nov11

It was a fine film. I expected so much more, but....whadayagunnado?

Rina

16Nov11

I expected this film to be a lot more ennuyeux than it was in the end. Still, I somehow felt like it didn’t do justice to Coco Chanel’s life. At times, it was more like watching a Rosamunde Pilcher adaptation instead of a biopic about a strong, creative and also controversial woman. I’d love to see a film that covered her entire life, with a script that offered more to its leading actress.