Just perfect...

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

CC&IS starts off well, but soon after the good beginning it becomes apparent that the only reason this was made was to show two people shagging. Some daily soaps and slightly more ambitious porn flicks have just as much depth.To make things worse, it is quite likely that there never was an affair between the two. Coco Chanel was a notorious liar, sort of like a female Baron Munchausen, and a life-long drug-addict. She had fabricated large chunks of her own past in order to hide her humble origins, and was otherwise caught lying on numerous occasions. Hence the claims she listed to her biographer – after decades of being a lying junkie - that she had a bit of the ol' in-out with Igor cannot be taken too seriously. It's not even certain whether she'd dreamed it all up as a result of her morphine/cocaine-induced confusion or whether she made it up just to attract attention to herself; either way, the events in CC&IS have a whiff of bull's dung about them. Stravinsky certainly never confirmed these allegations, and the people around him deny everything (which doesn't serve as concrete proof, naturally, but doesn't exactly help in supporting the existence of a hot Russo-French Winter fling). In short, there is no evidence of this alleged affair at all.Even more false was the portrayal of Stravinsky. He was said to have been a friendly, courteous chap; not at all the gloomy, silent, morose, anti-social, almost-autistic quasi-misfit as Mikkelsen plays him. While it is hinted here and there what a bitch Coco was, CC&IS doesn't even scratch the surface that lies above the unscratched surface of her bitchiness, opportunism, and sheer evil. This was certainly not a woman to be anybody's role-model, not even Sean Penn's. Though perhaps Oprah might have enjoyed her (im)moral compass a tad.Considering how interesting both of their biographies are, I find it stupefying that somebody would develop a script centered around a tiny speck of time (less than a year) in their very long, eventful lives. Stravinsky: married his first cousin, wrote some amazing music, was forced to leave Russia, opposed Lenin's and Stalin's regimes, was a monarchist who hated communism, and even met Mussolini on one occasion declaring himself a Fascist to him. Coco: a lower-class bastard partly brought up in a monastery, an aspiring singer who became a starlet, then a harlot, rose to business glory with the aid of her wealthy male lovers, had been a morphine addict for much of her life, threw cocaine parties, was a spy for the Nazis during the French occupation in the 40s, had a Nazi officer as a lover during that time, financed/aided a former Nuremberg war-crimes SS psycho after he'd been released from jail in 1951, and was strongly anti-Semitic. Furthermore, she helped fund a foreigner-loathing Far Right French publication in the 30s – and then even funded a Far Left publication right after the owner of the Far Right one died. THAT'S how insane, immoral and confused she was. All these things offer much more interest than two actors f**king in a black&white room.But why wonder. The vast majority of movies these days are geared toward women and teens. Who amongst those sheep would want to see a true biography of Stravinsky? We can soon expect an Oscar-winning Jay-Z biopic, but forget Stravinsky.The main casting isn't great. Mouglalis has an uncomfortable, mega-bass deep voice that would shame Saruman or any alpha-male Orc in his service. She has no breasts either, as flat as 15th-century Earth. What she lacks in effeminate tones and chestiness she "makes up for" – unfortunately – in sheer height. She manages to tower over most of the male cast, which makes her look even worse. She must be about a head taller than the real Coconut. Casting square-jawed, tough-looking Mikkelsen to play a skinny, very ugly classical composer isn't exactly the height of realism, but at least female viewers could benefit from it, rather than have to watch a more-or-less attractive woman have sex with a narrow-faced nerd. I could see Mikkelsen as Conan the Barbarian, but as Igor the Stravinsky his credibility is stretched.All in all, you're much better served going to Wikipedia or YouTube. This isn't a biography.

Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky (2009)It begins with the shocking (at the time) premier of the 1913 Russian composer Igor Stravinsky's great ballet, "Rite of Spring," that resulted in a minor riot in the theater (police were called, people were out of their seats and shouting). In a way, this recreation justifies the film right there--it's a bold and believable staging of the original, which has huge importance in the history of music and dance.Then there is a party after the war, with typical early 1920s abandonment. A new era has arrived, and Stravinsky and Chanel meet.The rest might seem to be history, but it's not. The whole rest of the film is really fiction, overall, a supposed affair between the two, and the supposed results of it in their work (Chanel No. 5 and some of Stravinsky's middle period works). It's a slow unfolding, in part because there is little to work with. The first half hour is made up of just two scenes (the ballet and the party). Then there are mostly quiet and upscale domestic situations, some intimacies, some quiet times between. The period details are pretty wonderful, and the filming is respectfully beautiful, much like a Merchant Ivory film (which might be set in the same general period). Acting? This is a puzzle. Both Chanel (French actress Ann Mouglalis) and Stravinsky (Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen) play everything with painful restraint. Who's to say exactly what these people were like, but surely the music is nothing if not crazy for the times (and beautifully crazy, for sure), and the fashions were nothing if not radical (and beautifully so)? But things develop as if everyone is psychotically shy and inhibited.Most of you know there was another Coco Chanel movie released this same year, "Coco before Chanel," about the young woman's life before her fame, and in a way, the Coco there played by Audrey Tatou makes more sense. That movie was imperfect, too, and it might be said that between the two, a glimpse of the real woman might be possible, which is in a way remarkable enough. The addition of Stravinsky and his music is compelling on an artistic level, but not a dramatic one. The movie, in its own way, tries to be romantically dramatic. The camera moves around people as they speak, and follows them into rooms and around corners. The music (mostly Stravinsky's) is vivid and rich (and Modern), and the sets are filled with plain old prettiness--wallpaper and light through doorways and a room full of flower petals (leading, we find out, to perfumes). It's all a great place to end up for an evening.If only the company were more interested, and interesting.

excerpt - French director Jan Kounen's Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky explores a period in the lives of the controversial Russian composer and the celebrated French fashion designer, when they briefly lived together in Chanel's country villa, and were rumoured to have had an affair. This was the second film released in 2009 to feature the character of Chanel, alongside Anne Fontaine's Coco Avant Chanel. Kounen's film was released to mixed critical reviews, but was chosen as the closing film of the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.A careful, elegant, and thoroughly grown-up study of two fascinating characters, Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky offers a powerful insight into what made these geniuses tick. Possibly a little slow paced for some, and slightly let down by a clichéd and unconfident ending, but for those with even a passing interest, it's a definite must-see.

Anyone who presumed that this film would be a follow-on from 'Coco before Chanel', Anne Fontaine's endearing, rags-to-riches depiction of Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel, would be mistaken. This film is director Jan Kounen's attempt to portray Coco how she really was: a mean-spirited, conceited femme fatale.Only the avant-garde artistry of Igor Stravinsky's music is enough to mollify Coco (Anna Mouglalis). The Russian composer's controversial work repels most for being too audacious and violent, but it entrances her, and after the Russian revolution leaves Igor and his family penniless, Coco invites them to live with her. Igor accepts and thus begins a cataclysmic affair.What begins as a 'Remains of the Day'-type attraction – where Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson were at pains to disclose their true feelings for each other and could only do so through knowing glances – very quickly descends into a sex-crazed love affair rivalling the one in 'Last Tango in Paris'.A subject you can usually trust French filmmakers with, however, what's missing from the plentiful love scenes between the two is, frankly, love. In fact, their entire relationship is rather curious. It's redolent of the relationship a drug addict has with drugs: It's the feeling the substance gives that's sacrosanct, not the substance itself.I was unmoved by what I believed should have been an intense performance for the part of Igor (Mads Mikkelsen). It is staid and lacklustre, interrupted by the occasional paroxysm when he is writing or playing music. The filming of Stravinsky's seminal piece, 'The Rite of Spring' in the grand Champs-Élysées theatre (as in actuality) is very impressive: the suspense, drama and sheer creepiness convince you that you are seeing the spectacle for real.It may be reasonably assumed that Coco was purely a product of her insular background - provincial, orphaned, raised by nuns - but she is never worthy of pity. The only person who deserves this is Igor's wife, Katherine (Yelena Morozova). Her characterisation of a powerless woman who sees her husband slip away from her inch by inch is so full of pathos that it leaves you contemplating whether to buy a bottle of Chanel No. 5 ever again.For all her brutality, though, there's a wonderfully dainty scene where she formulates her signature fragrance. As with everything else, she's very pernickety and it's only after playing Goldilocks that she arrives at the correct blend of the 80 ingredients.Asked if she ever felt guilty for her deeds, Coco simply says 'No' unbearably cavalierly, which left me wondering: If she never had any humanity for herself, why should we have any for her?www.scottishreview.net