Film Review Coco avant Chanel

Coco avant Chanel

Dogged mental courage molded by misfortune is often required to breakthrough barriers and succeed. Good looks help as well. Anne Fontaine’s film, Coco avant Chanel shows the metamorphosis of the woman behind the iconic label, Chanel.

“You like seeing me on all four legs,” she says with haughty disregard to her soon-to-be saviour, racing magnate Etienne Balsan, caught on her knees attending to a hem.

French actress, Audrey Tautou weaves a magnificent performance of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel supported by a talented French cast. Beautifully feline and untamed, like a sleek black cat, “Coco” stalks her prey, stage-managing her early connections.

Coco is introduced as a rejected figure of a little girl, clutching a teddy and deep in baby dreams, as she travels with her father through the isolated slate-grey villages of northern France when he abandons her at the Aubazine Monastery’s Orphanage.

We meet an aloof and fun-loving Coco again 15 years later in Moulin working as a seamstress and moonlighting as a cafe-concert singer. She acquires the legendary nickname, Coco, from the song she sings to smirking soldiers, “Coco qui a vu Coco”.

Coco plays her hand among the frivolous world of the idle rich and with a determined courage mesmerizes the snobbish boors of her gentrified audience. Even in love, she is no kitten, “A woman in love is helpless, like a begging dog,” she confides.

Estranged and ever observant, like an elegant black lily among a bed of crowded peonies, she declares the haute couture in the sea-side town of Edwardian Deauville is, “like being in a pastry shop”.

Coco disregards fashion and embodies a stylish hauteur. Early influences from the orphanage flash through her story, monochromatic tones, the simplicity and union of black and white, a practical work ethic, the profound effect of the nun’s habit in her design, and the androgynous influence that personified the early Chanel.

Coco’s life is weaved on an intricate tapestry of determination and rejection. She is never satisfied in love or manages to break through the bourgeoisie barrier. The film liberates a woman who entered a man’s world leaving a legacy of chic artistry.

Coco avant Chanel is a film that walks with dignity. Audrey Tautou embodies in “Coco” a fascinating and gutsy defiance of social norms. The film is inspirational and makes that Chanel handbag appear a little bit closer.


Coco avant Chanel (Coco Before Chanel) starring Audrey Tautou (Amélie and The Da Vinci Code ), Benoît Poelvoorde, Alessandro Nivola, Marie Gillain and Emmanuelle Devo. Directed by Anne Fontaine (The Girl from Monaco). Rated PG contains coarse language. Running time 110 mins. Drama, Biography. French with English sub titles. Now showing at selected cinemas nationwide.