Coco Before Chanel

In the world of French high fashion and haute couture, no name commanded, and continues to command, as much respect and admiration as that of Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel. The film Coco Avant Chanel, directed by Anne Fontaine and starring Audrey Tautou, Benoît Poelvoorde and Alessandro Nivola, charts the formative years of Chanel before she became a household name, from her early life in the poorhouses and orphanages of rural France, to her first faltering efforts at establishing a clothing business in Brittany, and her love affairs with playboys Étienne Balsan and Boy Capel, until her eventual success in pre-war Paris, out of which would grow into one of the premier fashion houses in the world.

The score for Coco Avant Chanel is by the enormously talented and almost ludicrously busy Alexandre Desplat; this is the second of five major scores the Frenchman has on his plate in 2009, following Chéri, and with The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Julie & Julia, and the Twilight...Read more

I absolutely agree with comments made about the musical score...it is understated yet exceptionally lush and captivating. The score really helps the film. I found the film to be very interesting...in places it is very artistic (in combination to the score)...other portions it lagged a bit. I loved the ending...

By Ezzat Goushegir,Chicago

I call the movie "Coco before Chanel" real art, real cinema! The screenplay was subtly written with scrutiny and directed artistically by Anne Fontaine.

Fontaine portrays Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel with an in-depth view on her characteristic from all aspects of her life, circumstances, and impulses. Mesmerizing in every frame, every scene, the film focuses on Coco's gaze into her surrounding, in order to explore her contradictions, her persistence of being obstinately herself and her tenacious longing to become a self-made woman.

Fontaine explains: "This girl, coming from the heart of French countryside, poor, uneducated, but endowed with an exceptional personality, was destined to be ahead of her time."

Fontaine's film is not about fashion, but about a striving woman who tries to be independent and conquering a world which governs by wealth and men. Coco does not sit back and hope for something to...Read more