Polka Dots & Sunglasses: The Costume Design of Les Diabolique

With so many voices out there on the internet - the last thing we need is another one writing the same ol' retrospective review of the same ol' film that everyone already knows is a classic - I thought it might be interesting to begin looking at specific elements of some of the films I watch, both old and new. I hope it inspires me to write more about some of the great films I see, and inspires you dear readers to try and admire the unexpected.

This entry contains spoilers, granted for a film from 1955, but I successfully avoided any so maybe you should too if you've never seen Les Diaboliques! I can't recall any other films that actively end with text telling the viewer to be silent about what they just saw, that's how blind you should go into this film.

"Vintage". It's a word that gets thrown about a lot today in relation to fashion. Whether it actually is vintage, or just has the same musky, old-timey appeal of something that is, it's become an adjective to describe items of clothes that one would associate with another time and place. Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1955 noir horror, Les Diaboliques, isn't a period film at all - or, at least, I don't think it was at the time - but I couldn't help but think of this phrase, "vintage", whilst ogling the delicious costumes that appear throughout. Despite featuring no credited costume designer, the duds of Les Diabolique are a masterclass of (at the time) contemporary costume design, as outfits of various shapes, colours and designs help inform the characters that wear them. It was just one of many beautiful aspects to this French classic that impressed me upon watching Clouzot's film for the first time last evening.

A black and white checkered dress - with fan - worn by Véra Clouzot in Les Diabolique

The first costume I couldn't take my eyes off was the gorgeous checkered dress that Véra Clouzot wears, shown above. Almost like houndstooth in pattern, it's a stunning sundress that I can easily see being worn today with, perhaps, just a little less formal structure.The fan may be a bit much, but this outfit is just the beginning a trend for the meek Mme Delassalle whose wardrobe consists entirely of outfits that pair black with white. Utilising the good ol' concept of white representing good and pureness, whereas black represents evil and "the devil" (the translation of the title, Les Diaboliques), the costuming of Ms Clouzot is clearly a way of symbolising her character's dangerous dalliance between the two. Later on in the film she wears loose-fitting white shirt with deep v-neck and a long black dress, and then later a white dress shirt and skirt with black shall. Always conservative - Mme Delassalle is a school teacher after all - with her hair braided and tied at the back, she never full embraces the colour of white for her entire outfit until the climactic scenes in the school hallways once she has confessed to her crimes. It's a simple motif, and occasionally very literal - hello Star Wars - but given the very moral discussion of right and wrong, it's a motif that works.


A black and white polka dot dressing gown that even I want!
My favourite costume worn by Véra Clouzot is the black and white polka dot dressing gown warn at several occasions throughout the movie (I do love when a character rewears clothes, it gives a film such a sense of authenticity). Seen up above this paragraph, it's a simple piece of costume that is not only gorgeous to look at, but character defining as well. It's unassuming nature - no glimpse of sex appeal there - perfectly encapsulates the mademoiselle's attitude as a somewhat repressed woman who isn't interested in dressing for anybody other than herself. I admit that even I want a black and white polka dot dressing gown now, preferally one made of material that looks as smoothly elegant as the one shown here. The gloss and the reflection of light make me suspect it's made of a very luxurious fabric and, good grief, wouldn't we all want that on us morning and night?

Simone Signoret, as Clouzot's partner in crime, also gets the black = evil, white = good treatment, except she doesn't come out looking quite so rosy (er, mixing up my colour metaphors there, aren't I?) Pictured here to the left, she is always seen wearing outfits of black, charcoal and dark grey. Yes, I do realise I am discussing colours that are obviously in the spectrum of "black and white" and that the cinematography couldn't determine whether she's wearing crimson or purple or black or gold, but it's obvious to tell she has been deliberately given darker hues to Clouzet's Mme Delassalle because she is ultimately the far guiltier party of the two. Usually dressed in long body-hugging dresses that provide a sex appeal that her friend never does, Signoret's Nicole Horner is frequently the more mysterious of the two and given far less opportunities to show remorse through her costumes. She's a vixen and proud of it. I simply adore the sunglasses she wears in the early scenes at the school that make for effortless cool alongside her near bleach blond hair and dangling cigarette. It's a look I've seen replicated many times in recent years, although one has to suspect that those recreating this look - regular everyday women and celebrities alike - know what era they're basing their looks on.

"So Frenchy, so chic!" goes the saying - although does anybody make reference these days to a "Prince of Wales suit"? I doubt that - and Les Diaboloque proves that. Of the film that they inhabit? Divine. A tingly fright factory that garners scares out of our own imaginations, it's final scenes made my entire body freeze. Without a single peep of a musical score to telegraph the audience's fears and emotions (apart from the opening credits, that is - did Phantom of the Opera ruin organ music for everyone?) it obviously works best if you don't know the twists to come (so I hope you paid heed to that spoiler warning up top if you intended to watch it), but it's such a finely crafted piece of work that repeat viewings would hold such a delicious richness to them. Something the patently ridiculous-looking remake surely can't achieve. Unless Kathy Bates punching someone in the face is your idea of fine craftmanship... actually, maybe it is worth a look after all.

The Incredible 1980s Power Looks of Prom Night II: Hello Mary Lou

Prom Night II: Hello Mary Lou (or Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II depending on what country you're from) is a horror film from 1987. It shares literally nothing whatsoever in common with it's predecessor, Prom Night, other than, yes, a prom is involved in each. This sequel revolves around the ghost of "Mary Lou" (Lisa Schrage), a high school slut who died at the prom in 1957 and has now taken over the body of "Vicki" (Wendy Lyon), a plain - some may some homely - schoolgirl who was recently nominated for Mary Lou's coveted Prom Queen title.

The movie is generally uninteresting and, much like Prom Night, is kinda boring and has that washed out look that a lot of 1980s horror flicks have. What is incredible about this movie is how completely and utterly 1980s it is. The fashion! The hair! The new wave music ripoffs! As I watched this movie I got the unsinkable sense that Flock of Seagulls had been really popular in Canada at the time. Oh yeah, this is a Canadian movie! It's basically what would happen if the cast of Degrassi performed an amateur production of Carrie!


Sunglasses... on a chain (but not at night)! Oh lordy.


A pearl necklace, floral knit tops, big pop star hair and chunky earrings. Oh yes.


I had a "boombox" just like that when I was a young'n.


You cannot deny that this is incredible.



This is Beth Gondek playing "Jess" who looks like Joan Cusack in Working Girl, but even funnier because, umm, this is set in a Canadian high school, not New York City. Jess has a secret - at first I thought she was a lesbian who was in love with Vicki, but it turns out she's just preggers to a creep who won't call her back! Mary Sue's demonic spirit throws her out a window. Poor Jess. POOR JESS' CAPE!


I see so many different hair styles in just these two images. And that's a big "Hello!" to the shirt that guy is wearing in the first picture (I never caught that character's name.)


Is that scene set in a gymnasium or a fashion mall? I never can tell with the 1980s.


I just find this picture amusing, don't you?


I love that people wore this shit TO SCHOOL!


I'd like to point out that that first image is a school teacher caressing the buttocks of Vicki. Yes, a teacher. Amazing. That second picture? Okay, there's an entire scene in Prom Night II: Hello Mary Lou in which Vicki chases her next victim completely starkers. And I don't mean in any Austin Powers sorta way, I mean complete head to toe nudity. Way too much vagina in this scene, thank you very much. It's the most ridiculous thing in the entire movie and that's saying something!


I love that this Prom looks like nothing more than an Oingo Boingo videoclip with some fluorescent stripping.


Look at that computer! It makes The Net look positively modern!


What losers.
This next shot, the final one thankfully, isn't particularly "omg how funny were the '80s?" but I found it equally as hilarious. It's right after Vicki has won the title of Prom Queen and she stands on stage accepting her crown, but she's not elegant at all. She stands up on the stage in the high school auditorium like she's Ethel Merman on a cruise ship.


And that's basically all I have to say about Prom Night II: Hello Mary Lou other than to share with you my favourite moment from the movie. Favourite because it was so unexpected. Don't have the volume on at work though, kids!

Five Shots: Red Shoes

Review: Chanel Coco & Igor Stravinsky

Chanel Coco & Igor Stravinsky
Dir. Jan Kounen
Year: 2010
Aus Rating: M
Running Time: 120mins

Fans of cinema may be experiencing a bit of deja vu lately. First there was Jim Sheridan's Brothers, which was a remake of Susanne Bier's Brødre. Then at the start of April we had Philippe Lioret's Welcome, which was, generally speaking, a better (and French) version of The Blind Side. Now comes Chanel Coco & Igor Stravisky (conveniently being shortened to Coco & Igor), which picks up directly after last year's Coco avant Chanel left off with the death of Coco's lover "Boy". These two films about Coco Chanel were made completely independent of one another and yet here they year, less than a year between release dates and sharing so many similarities, it's uncanny.

Thankfully, Coco & Igor jettisons the biopic-fodder that filled Coco avant Chanel's opening passages - the orphanage, the jazz bars, the career buildup - and dives right in to when Chanel began her love affair with Igor Stravinsky, the famed Russian composer and married father. On that basis I am thankful, but unfortunately this latest film suffers from many of the same problems that plagued last year's box office hit (Coco avant Chanel was the highest grossing foreign language film in Australia and the USA in 2009) such as its been-there-done-that feel. Except this time it's not the growing-up-in-poverty-before-making-good storyline that has been done before, it's the beginning-an-affair-with-a-married-man-in-a-time-when-women-were-only-meant-to-wear-pretty-hats that we've seen time and time again.


Anna Mouglalis gives by far the best performance of Coco Chanel that we've seen lately. She trumps Audrey Tautou's vague, limp reading of the fashion icon as well as the bombastic one of Shirley MacLaine in the made-for-TV movie Coco Chanel. Mouglalis' deep, throaty voice makes her stand out and gives an aura of authority that Tautou couldn't even attempt. Mads Mikkelsen is fair, if a little one-note, as Stravinsky, while Yelena Morozova impresses as his patient put upon wife, but nobody's performance breaks out from the framing that attempts to suffocate them.

The film is actually much more concerned with Igor than it is Coco, who is merely a more recognisable name to hang the curtains of the movie upon. Little to no attention is paid to Chanel's growing business apart from a few scenes in her Parisian shop, although there is a subplot involving the creation of Chanel No. 5 that feels superfluous, as if writer Chris Greenhalgh - also the author of the biography that the film is based on - and director Jan Kounen felt that they weren't putting in enough of Coco. As if they owed something to the audiences who had purchased a ticket based on the name of Coco Chanel. Chanel is by far the most interesting character in this or Coco avant Chanel and yet none of these filmmakers seem to be able to get her right. Her aloof independence surely doesn't help, but was this all her life really was? Screwing a married man in the study of her country estate? At least Coco avant Chanel played somewhat with the idea of Chanel's radical achievements.

Just as with the other Chanel film, the costumes in Coco & Igor are exceptional, with costume design by Chattoune and Fab (yes, those are their names) and even featuring an original Karl Largerfeld design for all you fashion crazies out there. Try and spot it! The art direction of the country estate makes it feel effectively lived in and the sound design is also of special note. Each step a person takes on the hardwood floors and every note played on the piano rings out of the speakers and helps the film feel more intimate than it really is. Unfortunately, David Ungaro's cinematography is incredibly dark at times and it's particularly bothersome during several early scenes when the audience is trying to figure out who everyone is. Meanwhile, I wouldn't be surprised to see Gabriel Yared show up on Oscar's radar for his musical score.


Coco & Igor is book-ended by two exceptional sequences. The first is a recital of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring with choreography by Vaslav Nijinski, which will thrill and delight many, both for visual wow factor and as a fascinating way of figuring out who all these noteworthy people are circling one another. The film ends with a five-minute montage sequence that makes a better case for the beautiful, dramatic and all too bitterly sad life that Coco lead than anything in the 110 or so minutes before it. It's a gorgeous sequence that almost had me re-evaluating the rest of the movie. I saw this movie nearly a month ago and this scene still lingers in my mind with its beautiful images set to Yared's wonderful score. Stay tuned until the end of the credits, too, as there is a little nugget of a scene that ties a neat little bow onto the life story of Coco Chanel. C

Review: The September Issue

The September Issue
Dir. RJ Cutler
Year: 2009
Aus Rating: PG
Running Time: 90mins

Watching the new documentary The September Issue is, at times, quite strange. It was made in 2007, which means its filming started before the similarly-themed The Devil Wears Prada was released and became a worldwide hit. Director RJ Cutler must have been kicking himself that he hadn't come up with this idea a couple of years earlier, which would have made its release come at the same time, making it able to feed off of that Hollywoodised version of the tale. It's also funny that the world of fashion is so deep into trends and seasons and yet this movie is coming out nearly two years after the fashions it features would have run their course and been thrown out by the "fashionistas" and fashionista wannabes that rush to purchase Vogue so they can feel in the know. Everybody watching The September Issue will be judging the clothes as much as they will the movie itself, and it adds an interesting dynamic in knowing that this is all from two years ago. Interesting too is that barely any of the clothes featured within are the sort of outfits that regular people could indeed purchase and wear on a coffee date. Such is the world of fashion.

As the poster states, "Fashion is a religion, this is the bible" and The September Issue goes a good way in showing just why. In its brisk - very brisk - 90 minute running time we follow the five month process that goes into creating the famed "September issue" of Vogue. Given unlimited access to the work (and occasional home) life of editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, it is this that gives the film an edge over a more broadly-based documentary on the fashion industry.


Wintour has been called many things, least offensively being "bitch" (yes, least offensive), but while she can, at times, come off as quite passive aggressive, a bitch she is not. Not to those who she cares for anyway. She's blunt, yes, but if you were in charge a media empire such as Vogue and you lived and breathed it every day of the year then I am sure you'd lose the ability to be subtle too. And the old expression is as true here as it's ever been; if Wintour was a man she would be commended for doing such a great job, but because she's a woman she is "cold" and "a bitch". It's unfortunate then that the film doesn't delve into Wintour's opinions on those ideas. It sticks strictly to the fashion and in that regards the film succeeds.

Watching this alternate universe work is quite fascinating. Watching not only Wintour, but also the likes of her fashion editor Grace Coddington, up-and-coming designer Thakoon, eccentric and flamboyant editor-at-large André Leon Talley and the many models, art directors, photographers and assistants that populate the offices at Vogue. Not enough time is given to them, unfortunately, but thankfully Cutler has recognised what a wonderful personality he has in Coddington, who eventually becomes the star of the film with her giant mass of hair and her defiant opinions on Wintour's methods. The film truly sparks when she is on screen.

Wintour herself, however, does prove to be an enjoyable person from time to time. It's quite endearing to see her cracking jokes when she has the reputation she does. She is confident and motivated and worked her arse off to get the best magazine she can onto the shelves. She is in charge of this empire and that means not talking to the models in a way that would please them then so be it. Having seen the mammoth task she undertakes - remember that whilst this "september issue" is being produced there are still other issues to be published - then I think comes off more than acceptable.


One person who doesn't come out smelling quite as nice is, unfortunately for her, Sienna Miller. The actress whose managers somehow got her onto the cover of the September issue that the film follows. Miller is ripped to shreds by this movie. Whether its everybody and their pets talking about how bad her hair is, to the photographer blaming her for a photoshoot in Room not working and then to everyone complaining her teeth are too big in one shot while her neck isn't right in another. Poor gal probably won't wanna sit down to watch The September Issue any time soon.

In the end though The September Issue is a fun time at the movies. It overflows with gorgeous feathers, frills and fashion with a great collection of characters on show. It's not all light and fluffy, but its never a drag. One just wishes that the director had used this unique and rare opportunity that he was given to truly delve into some of the more serious issues on hand such as sexism and the idea that fashion is nothing more than a waste of time by people who think football is the height of greatness. B-

Review: Coco avant Chanel

Coco avant Chanel
Dir. Anne Fontaine
Year: 2009
Aus Rating: PG
Running Time: 105mins

A lot of the time a biopic is a biopic is a biopic. By mere virtue of existing, one must assume that they know where it is going. They don't make movies about famous people whose lives were not interesting, and in the world of filmmakers, "interesting" usually equals things such as "lived in poverty", "addicted to [insert substance of choice]" and "fights through adversity and tragedy." Anne Fontaine's splendidly made Coco avant Chanel (quite simply meaning "Coco before Chanel") follows the blueprint to a tee, and proves to be the root of the film's problems.

Stop if you've heard this one before; A young girl is made an orphan in the French countryside and goes to live with nuns. She grows up and begins to sing in sleazy bars for money before deciding to shack up with a wealthy count who she feels keeps her trapped like a cage, not letting her creativity spread. She falls in love with another man, a love that is destined to end in tragedy before Coco rises from the ashes from her pain and conquers the world. Yes, it sounds an awful lot like La Vie en Rose, the biopic of Edith Piaf from two years back. Coco avant Chanel is better than that one, that's for sure.


The newer film, however, suffers from similar problems - thankfully hacked up editing is not one of them - including an ungrateful lead character who comes off as incredibly unappealing and one that left me asking why all these men found her so gosh darn irresistible. If somebody would like to explain this to me then I'll listen. The film's formulaic plot developments prove disappointing to. There is nothing in Coco that you cannot telegraph from the opening scenes in the orphanage. And that's even without knowing anything about Chanel other than that she designed clothes.

It is, however, the clothes that set this movie apart. Not just the gorgeous duds that all the characters get to parade around in from start to finish - Catherine Leterrier sure did have her work cut out for her and she succeeds with flying colours - but also the scenes involving Coco designing and creating these beautiful garments. I suspected there was much more passion behind these scenes than there were behind others. The way the camera lingers over Coco's hand and she traces patterns and tears away at fabrics and runs her fingers across expensive lace. It is a shame that there was not more of it. The final scene, a fashion show down a mirrored staircase, is divine and it would have been a more interesting spot to pick up the story of her life at.


As Coco Chanel Audrey Tautou gives a performance that is neither good nor bad, just merely adequate, although she impresses towards film's end when she is actually called upon to show some emotions in her face. There are worse things that spending 100 or so minutes looking at Alessandro Nivola, but here he doesn't register. Best in film honours go to Emmanuelle Devos as an actress and Benoît Poelvoorde as Coco's wealthy count. Both should have been given more. All the technicals are ace, too. From Leterrier's aforementioned costumes, Christophe Beaucarne's gorgeous cinematography and Alexandre Desplat's original music score.

Unfortunately Fontaine has not done enough with Coco's story to make it worth telling on anything more than a visual level. And even then, little is put in to explore the artistic process that goes into it all. The movie has horses and castles and pretty clothes and it's very easy on the eye and I was surprised when the film ended because it certainly didn't feel like it had been over 100 minutes long - a problem many films have is being too long and the audience knowing it - but there's little here that will come to define Coco Chanel to viewers. C+