"Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky," don't ignite on screen

ou gotta be "A Poco Loco in the Coco" -- as the old cha-cha tune was called -- to attempt three Coco Chanel movies in the same year. One fell through, but two of them made it to the screen. Can the TV miniseries, dolls and bobblehead franchise be far behind?

"Coco Before Chanel," with Audrey Tautou in the title role, explored the budding fashionista's pre-perfume rise. Now "Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky," opening Friday at the Regent Square, takes us to and through her stormy affair with the pioneering Russian composer -- a Paris match or mismatch made in purgatory.

At its outset, Coco (Anna Mouglalis) has a rich, handsome boyfriend named Boy in hand but is also consumed by the cutting-edge arts scene in Paris. There, on May 29, 1913, she attends the scandalous premiere of Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring," choreographed by Nijinsky for the Ballets Russes -- a work as revolutionary in music as Coco's would become in fashion.

This opening "Rite" sequence is nothing short of brilliant, full of palpably chaotic energy: Everyone is hugely nervous backstage. "Forget everything you've ever heard before!" the hysterical Nijinsky orders his dancers. "Forget melody, follow the rhythm!" Suddenly, after the first deceptively calm bassoon notes introduce the wild shepherds' dance, we begin to realize it was the ballet and the in-your-face primal choreography that shocked and offended people as much as -- or more than -- the music. The upper-crust audience's confused muttering at the end of the first movement turns to outright hostility during the second, as warring factions start yelling not just at the performers but at each other.

Coco, for her part, is captivated as much by the riot as the music. Stravinsky (Mads Mikkelsen), for his part, is devastated.

Cut to 1920: Coco is now wealthy and successful but grief-stricken after Boy's death in a car crash. Igor, post-Russian Revolution, is now a penniless refugee living in exile. When they're introduced by impresario Serge Diaghilev (Grigori Manukov), the sexual sparks fly. Coco invites Igor, his consumptive wife Katya (Yelena Morozova) and their four kids to take up residence at her opulent new black-and-white expressionist villa -- its proto-deco wallpaper and designer satin sheets as monochromatic as Coco's clothes.

"You don't like color, Mlle. Chanel?" Katya asks.

"As long as it's black," Coco replies.

In any case, whatever her faults and quirks, it's pretty damned generous of Coco to house the polyrhythmic Stravinskys. But domestic dissonance -- and an affair -- are inevitable. Igor's amorous style does not involve a lot of foreplay. Their frantic frenetic couplings feature a great deal of his posterior but very little emotion, on either part. These are strange people in a war of the expressionless roses. Katya, as sickly as she is kindly, has a chalk-pale face and no eyebrows. Whenever the music emanating from Igor's studio stops, she gets worried -- for good reason. There's mounting on the piano bench, and such benchmarks continue to mount.

Dutch-born director Jan Kounen ("Darshan: The Embrace"), who replaced William Friedkin for unclear reasons, gives us strikingly beautiful Kubrickian images and camera movement (reminiscent of "The Shining"), with the aid of David Ungaro's fine cinematography. But they're done if not to death, to the brink of it. His terrific "Rite of Spring" sequence -- with exquisite shots and angles from the wings -- is never equaled thereafter. And the insufficient snippets of music are disappointing in quality and quantity alike. He never has the nerve to go with a full piece.

On the other hand, Coco's lab work amid the flower petals -- 80 ingredients and 100 blooms to make a single drop of Chanel No. 5 -- is fascinating.

Ms. Mouglalis' austere, graceful beauty and deep voice well suit her sleek portrayal of Coco, intimidating to point of terrifying. She has been the Chanel company's chosen model for perfume ads since 2002. How skinny is this woman? Remember Olive Oyl? No? Well, let's just say, if she drank tomato juice, she'd look like a thermometer.

Denmark's Mikkelsen is a stiff, stone-faced Stravinsky -- evidently much like the original, with his push-ups and raw egg at dawn, in preparation for a hard day's composing.

If only they (and the movie) weren't so totally humorless. These lovers desperately needed 20 minutes with Soupy Sales. Instead, they're generally too cool to say anything. Igor's verbalized thoughts always come late and often never arrive at all. "Coco & Igor" feels like a silent movie -- music and pictures, sans dialogue -- much of the time. Not a bad idea, conceptually, if executed with that in mind. Which this isn't.

In the end, it's unfulfilling but enough to satisfy the Coco nuts.



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