We don’t have cable. Which means my American husband does not get to watch a whole heck of alot of football. But THIS weekend, CTV is broadcasting 2 games Saturday, 2 games Sunday. Mr. C explains it’s the playoffs, you see. I understand playoffs. The NHL holds an 8-week-long playoff season. The NFL playoffs seem kind of short by comparison. However, it’s not how long you can go, it’s what you do with the time you’re given that counts. Yes, you can infer from that whatever your mind conjures up.
Mr. C asked me what will I be doing while he’s watching the double-headers. Oh. Guess I should occupy myself. I was counting on spending some time with Mr. C, being as the kids are at their dad’s this weekend. But ok, we can compromise. We’ll run errands in the morning & I’ll keep myself busy the rest of the time. What to do, what to do……take down Christmas decorations. Read on the treadmill. Vacuum. Watch a movie.
Yes! Watch a movie that Mr. C would probably prefer NOT to watch with me. I cozy up on the bed with a blanket and some tea & settle in to watch “Coco avant Chanel” with Audrey Tautou.
I usually only watch French films in French without subtitles when I’m alone, which isn’t very often (not that I’m complaining), so this was a treat. And I was not disappointed. Gabrielle Coco Chanel was a true pioneer in how she navigated through life as an orphan at the turn of the century, struggling to make ends meet as a seamstress by day & cabaret singer by night. She becomes a cynical self-assured young woman, who detests society’s shackles placed on women at that time, yet understands that in order for her to achieve any kind of dream she may have outside of a marriage of convenience, she must submit to being a kept woman. Jaded and stern and oh-so-serious, she shuns love and doesn’t believe in its possibility for her or for any woman. Until she meets Arthur Capel.
The scenery is great in this film, the dialogue is sharp, funny, poignant. But most of all, most of all, it’s the scenes with Coco and Arthur. I’m a romantic, I know, but there aren’t alot of romantic movies that I find can really sweep me away. This one did.
You want passion? Check out Coco & Arthur in the backseat of his car on the beach in Deauville.
How about romance? Put on your waltzing shoes as Coco stands out in her little black dress, glowing in the arms of Arthur, who is one of the most dashing romantic characters I’ve ever seen as they twirl around the dance floor of the casino.
You want to see how a man looks when he’s falling in love? This is the film for you.
How about the gallantry and civility that two men pursuing the same woman show each other? It’s all there.
Throughout the film, her style is evident and is practically a character on its own; she seems to have been very much a woman of simplicity and a great believer that reserve is the best aphrodisiac (“A woman is closest to being naked when she is well-dressed.”)
For me, this film was as if I was witnessing a woman’s grand passion finally being awakened only to have it yanked away. We see how she channelled her passion for living into the empire that became Chanel. We never know what we are capable of accomplishing until we experience life and live all that is given to us, even in tragedy.
In difficult circumstances throughout her early life, Gabrielle Coco Chanel did not submit to the dire circumstances that presented themselves to her. She did not succumb (at least not for long) to possible defeat. When fired from her singing gig, she snagged costumes on her way out in order to have something to wear at the next (then unknown) audition. When her sister left her to live with a baron (which must have felt like sheer abandonment), Gabrielle Coco Chanel plucked her courage and presented herself at her future benefactor’s estate, tacitly accepting the role of mistress. When she was faced with marrying for convenience, she took the as-yet-rarely-ever-done-by-a-woman decision of striking out ”to make my own fortune” with a hat shop in Paris. When life dealt her the ultimate blow of depriving her of the love that grounded her, she let her soul flourish amid textiles and scissors, imagination and determination, resulting in the emergence of la maison Chanel.
I may not have a little black dress, my perfume collection is but one lonely little flask, I may only dream of ever wearing the classic Chanel suit. But I AM French, and as Mademoiselle Chanel said: “There is no time for cut-and-dried monotony. There is time for work. And time for love. That leaves no other time.”
There is a time for football, and there is a time for love.
Dear Reader, the second NFL double-header is almost over. I’m glad that Mr. C has had time to watch something he clearly loves ……it’s evident by the way he talks to the TV downstairs, cheering when the going is good, muttering his disapproval when the going is not so good. But now I think Mr. C will be the happy recipient of a French lesson…..
Bonsoir,
Chantal xoxo
