Showing posts with label 2009. Show all posts

Film Review: Coco Avant Chanel (2009)


A Fashionable Biopic

Film: Coco Avant Chanel (Trans. 'Coco Before Chanel')
Released (Belgium): April 22, 2009
Language: French
Direction and Screenplay: Anne Fontaine
Based on the book by: Edmonde Charles-Roux
Cast: Audrey Tautou, Benoît Poelvoorde, Alessandro Nivola

A biopic about the most prominent female fashion icon of the 20th century isn't the type of movie that you will generally catch me watching. But thanks to all the hype generated in (not just) the fashion circles and the fact that it featured Audrey Tautou, the most prolific French actress of her generation, I finally decided to give Coco Before Chanel a shot.

The film, in its entirety, is a treat to watch. Albeit it's dragging in places, but these sequences are well-compensated by well-constructed witty repartees ("Which weren't very enjoyable thanks to the awful subtitles" my co-watcher adds. "Learn French then!" I ask him!) The cinematography is excellent, with the occasional doses of French countryside dotted into a fairly indoorsy setting. The expensive chateaus are examples of some fine set-designing and the costume designed by Catherine Leterrier (with films such as Joan of Arc and Gorillas in the Mist to her credit) contributes to the early-20th Century feel which is so essential to the story.

A biopic of Coco Chanel would have always been a rather hard thing to achieve. With her tendency of colorfully fabricating her history to alleviate the stigma brought forth by poverty, illegitimacy and orphanhood in late-19th, early 20-th century France, it was left to the biography of Coco authored by Edmonde Charles-Roux to supply the source materials ("Which it somewhat sticks to" my co-watcher asserts. I wouldn't know about that!) for the movie.


Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel (Audrey Tautou) takes up a tailoring job after spending nearly her entire childhood with her sister Adrienne (Marie Gillain) at an orphanage in Aubazine, with her father out at work nearly the entire year. At 18, she takes up work at a local tailor's and the two sisters become cabaret singers at night. It is in the bar where the two sisters meet French billionaire Étienne Balsan (Benoît Poelvoorde), who is neck-deep in race horses and women. Coco and Balsan start having an affair of course, and simultaneously begins her quest of liberating women's fashion from 'fit for male gaze' to 'comfort'. However, Balsan's friend, Arthur 'Boy' Capel (Alessandro Nivola) comes into the picture and Coco falls head-over-heels for him.


Audrey Tautou is fabulous as Coco Chanel. Her slightly subdued act with the occasional bursts of energy and determination artfully hints of the underlying woman who would go on to be the only person from the fashion circles to be included in Time Magazine's 100 most influential people of the 20th century. ("Coco Chanel was known for her flamboyance and devil-may-care attitude, which the film mostly missed, don't you think?" my co-watcher asserts. I don't know what he's talking about!) Among the male leads, Benoît Poelvoorde steals the show with his 'Balsam' act. His cocktail of lechery, jealousy, kindness and love is an act that will be etched in the viewer's minds for a long time indeed. Nivola is not bad as Capel, but the extreme downplaying of his portrayal fails to pack a punch. ("Both Tautou and Nivola were so downplayed, they were bound to fall for each other!" my co-watcher jokes) Finally, Anne Fontaine mostly impresses as the director and writer. Taking up a story with so many morally gray aspects, cross-dressing agendas and a name as big as the fashion industry itself is an immensely challenging task! And it's safe to say, Anne Fontaine achieves quite a bit in her attempt.

Rating: 7/10

Signing Off,
-Jagannath (Jesse)

Film Review: Paranormal Activity (2009)



Not a [REC], But Great Anyways!

Film: Paranormal Activity
Released (1st screening): Oct 14, 2007
(Theatrical): Oct 16, 2009
Language: English
Direction and Screenplay: Oran Peli
Cast: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat

To put myself on an objective plane before writing this review, I should admit that I consider 2007 Spanish zombie thriller [Rec] to be THE scariest movie I have ever seen. Now, contrary to whatever my co-watcher says, (who reportedly still has nightmares about a teenage Linda Blair scaring the whole world in 'The Exorcist') [Rec] scored over all other films thanks to its pseudo-original footage format, where a camera crew gets stuck in a zombie-infested Barcelona apartment building.

Oran Peli's Paranormal activity, however, has a different premise; but here again, the camera is operated by a protagonist: an over-enthusiastic man (Micah Sloat) who is interested to find out the truth after a host of spooky occurences in his house, that are somehow connected with his girlfriend's (Katie Featherston) past.

Screened for the first time in late-2007 during the Screamfest Horror Film Festival, it took two years for the film to find a proper distributor. After a slew of incidents that included proposals to re-shoot and even a hassled Steven Spielberg claiming that the DVD of the movie was 'haunted' (but he ended up liking the movie too), DreamWorks and Paramount finally released the film, 11 years after the first horror pseudo-documentary film of its kind, 'The Blair Witch Project' hit screens.

Even though my co-watcher decides to go to sleep each time I begin one of my history lessons, cinema-goers have been tastefully acquainted with this 'style' of film-making in 1998, thanks to 'The Blair Witch Project'; the success of which, however, did not generate a string of below-average films of the type (Thank heavens!). [Rec] came in 2007, its not-so-good Hollywood remake 'Quarantine' came a year later and in 2008 itself, a similarly shot 'Eco-terror' film ("What's that?" my co-watcher asks. "Films like Godzilla", I reply) 'Cloverfield' took home a fair amount of moolah.


So is Paranormal Activity special, or different, or better than its predecessors? To put it fairly, it is a heck of a scary film. The amateur footage looks amateurish enough to make you believe as if you are really watching 'the real deal'. The slow (albeit, steady) curve of the story has everything from low-key titillating shock-effects like small sound distractions whenever 'the demon' is around; to nerve-wracking sequences where doors are closed with heavy bangs and protagonists are dragged away by a scary and invisible force. The acting is effectively natural, Katie is easy on the eye, Micah is effortless; the fact that Katie is called Katie and Micah is called Micah within the film boosts the aunthenticity factor as well.

The real kicker is perhaps the ending which has the potential of a fairly harsh kick in the 'Courage Guts' of the more 'gallant' viewers (Like 'me'). But on a totally personal level, the original 2007 ending was much more 'complete' than the new one. ("We all know Hollywood. The new ending nearly guarantees a sequel." my co-watcher explains. And I guess she is right. Paramount has already made public their plans for a sequel)



So Oran Peli does strike gold in his first directorial venture. And maybe its not as good as the 'sleekly planned' and 'budgeted' [Rec] (Let me see Michael Bay or Peter Jackson pull off a movie like this with 15000 bucks!), but its sure to go down in the history of Horror as a really good 'Screamfest'. After all, a movie which boasts the presence of a talented screamer (Katie was good!), it's only fair that the movie gets a fair share of scared screamers from the audience as well.

Rating: 7.5/10 (My co-watcher doesn't believe in ratings, but What the Hell!)
Signing Off,
-Jagannath (Jesse)
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