'Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky' is worthwhile for some sumptuous visuals and great Stravinsky music, as well as some excellent additional music by Gabriel Yared. The film begins quite nicely with a depiction of the original Paris performance of Stravinsky's 'The Rite of Spring' in 1913. That performance of course was considered scandalous at the time, not only for the iconoclastic rhythms introduced by Stravinsky but also for Diaghilev's frenzied choreography. At the performance is Coco Chanel, the famed designer, who admires the piece despite the derision from most of the clueless 'bourgeoisie' in the audience.Flash forward seven years and Stravinsky, his wife and children, have fallen on hard times. In steps Chanel who offers to put them up at her estate in the suburbs of Paris. At first Stravinsky declines but changes his mind after he realizes that the fresh suburban air would be good for his wife, who suffers from what appears to be pneumonia.The rest of the Coco and Igor narrative is rather predictable. Coco, the free spirit that she is, seduces Stravinsky, and makes love to him frequently, as the rest of the family enjoys the good meals and gifts, the designer magnate bestows upon them. Eventually (wouldn't you guess), Stravinsky's wife falls into despair as she becomes quite aware that Igor has strayed into the arms of Ms. Chanel. Historically, this all plays out for approximately nine months until May of 1921, when the wife and children left (and Stravinsky soon followed).There are some rather perfunctory sex scenes between Chanel and Igor with the great composer uttering the best line to Chanel that she's not an artist but rather a "shopkeeper." This is probably the worst thing you could say to someone like Chanel, who suddenly loses all interest in Stravinsky and gives up on him as a lover. Nonetheless, Chanel remained generous toward Stravinsky, bankrolling a new production of the 'Rite of Spring' and remaining friends with him, in the years to come.The implication here is that somehow Coco Chanel was a muse for Stravinsky which is not borne out by any evidence. The entire narrative is based on a fictional book entitled 'Coco and Igor', inspired by Coco Chanel's claims that she had an affair with Stravinsky. This was disputed by Stravinsky's second wife as well as his long-term assistant.Chris Greenhaigh, who wrote both the screenplay and the novel it was based on, also throws in an irrelevant sub-plot about how Chanel goes about coming up with her famous fragrance, 'Chanel No. 5'. It's a pointless aside due to the lack of conflict (Chanel has meetings with her chemist, sniffs various experimental fragrances, and finally decides on her final pick). Voila!What's much more interesting about Chanel is completely left out in this film. That of course is that she had a long relationship with an anti-Semitic British aristocrat, was probably (more often than not), a Nazi sympathizer during the war, may have been a Nazi spy and aided a Nazi war criminal after the war.'Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky' details a footnote in the career of a great composer. We're asked to get excited about this imagined relationship and I'm not sure why. I get the idea that Chanel and Stravinsky were sexually attracted to one another. And that's about all I get from Greenhaigh's speculations. Anna Mouglalis is quite good as Chanel but Mads Mikkelsen (the Danish actor who was cast perfectly as a man falsely accused as a pedophile in 'The Hunt'), seems much too stiff as Stravinsky (the great composer was known to be quite a social, genial soul).I would recommend 'Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky' mainly for the look and feel of the visual and musical aspects of the production. But I remain unconvinced there's enough drama here to sustain one's interest for a full 119 minutes.

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.

I am not particularly acknowledged with either Coco Chanel's or Igor Stravinsky's lives and careers, and frankly, I never bothered to investigate them in detail. That is until I saw this excellent motion picture...What fascinated me from the first 'till the last frame was the whole way "Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky" was filmed. The frame is absolutely perfect, and it's not hard to realize that this movie was made by an educated professional who knows his camera well. Each scene, each cut and setting is right, and united together with an emotional story and very good acting this becomes film a lasting experience in the eye of the beholder. I honestly don't know whether the story is based on true facts or fiction, yet the script is written well enough to be truly convincing. Good job!Beside the technical brilliance, there's yet another thing which made me love this motion picture - The surrounding of the filming location was a jewel in a crown, maybe even the shiniest one. I particularly like the interior decoration of Art Deco, and "Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky" shows the finest example.In short - this film is a solid example of how movie making can still be treated as art, despite this modern cinematic world of one liners and CGI. 10 points well earned.