TIFF'09 Wishlist - Film # 2

Another film, which was chosen to close the Venice Film Fest is about my favourite fashion icon - Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel.

Paris, 1913: Coco Chanel attends the first, scandalous performance of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. The rhythmic dissonance of the score and the shocking choreography of the piece cause a riot. But Coco is impressed when Igor storms out of the theatre.

Seven years later, Coco and Igor meet again. Although her business has flourished, Coco is mourning her lover, Arthur "Boy" Capel. Igor has been forced to flee to France following the Russian Revolution. An immediate sympathy and attraction is established between the ‘couturiere’ and the composer.

Coco invites Igor to live in her villa outside Paris, along with his wife and children. The summer months that follow see Coco and Igor begin a secret affair. Their work benefits from their growing intimacy; Igor begins to compose in a new, more liberated style while Coco creates Chanel No. 5 with her perfumer, Ernest Beaux.

However, the almost unbearable tension in the villa cannot be contained forever.