Forty-six-year-old American horror filmmaker Maxine Walker (Angelina Jolie) travels to Paris in order to direct a fashion show for the first time. The world of haute couture is foreign territory to her. She describes the industry as “useless and necessary”, a duality often associated with a trade often deemed elitist. Yet she feels at home, being warmly welcomed by her crew, including her doting and handsome cinematographer (Louis Garrel). The fact that Maxine has excellent command of French is particularly useful. The stakes are very high. This is a make-or-break type of moment in the life of the middle-aged artist.
Eighteen-year-old Ada left South Sudan as a child because of the war and grew up in Kenya. She studied pharmacy, before being headhunted on the streets of Nairobi. Timid and unpretentious,. the teenager is unaware that she’s the big star of the upcoming fashion show. She’s been invited to live in Paris, and forced to live with women of around her age and not always very welcoming of her presence. The role is played with delicate confidence by newcomer Anyier Anei, who shares her nationality with her character.
Maxine’s world comes tumbling down after her American doctor calls her and urges her patient to see a local expert. That’s because her biopsy unexpectedly revealed various “atypias” (cellular abnormalities). Oncologist Dr Hansen (Vincent Lindon) spills the beans: Maxine has a very aggressive type of cancer, she requires urgent surgery (possibly a full mastectomy), and the prospect of further interventions is very real. The knowledge that Maxine is part of a tiny elite that can get almost immediate treatment is of little comfort. The woman carries on with work as if nothing had happened, as she experiences the first stage of acceptance: denial.
Couture is a movie about the irresistible allure and the inescapable futility of the fashion world, career pressures and unwarranted exposure. Fashion professionals – both those in front of and behind the camera – must contend with multiples types of humiliation, often bordering of dehumanisation. Maxine refuses to accept her physical limitations, her mortality (she is indignant at the doctor’s suggestion that she could die, until he breaks the shocking news: every single one of us will die), and to prioritise her body ahead of her work. She sees herself as a working machine. meanwhile, Ada is made to pose for invasive photographers as menstrual blood runs down her legs, and models have their toes damaged by extreme footwear (adhering to impossible beauty standards). Anything is allowed in the name of the catwalk, or the cover of Vogue.
The warble of late French chanteuse and fashion icon Francoise Hardy is featured in the middle of the film, as the models listen and dance to Mon Amie La Rose. The lyrics, which are duly translated into English in the subtitles, speak about the ephemerality of mundane experiences. Fashion and filmmaking are fleeting pleasures. Just like the flower is the song, you may drop dead in the morning: “a life time comes and goes/ and my friend the rose/ told me this morning/ see the God who/ made me Bow my head/ I feel I’m falling now”.
The fact that the film is partly inspired by Jolie’s family history of breast and ovarian cancer is also meaningful, is barely revolutionary. The disease that dare not speak its name (it takes a long time before Maxine can actually mouth the c-word) is so prevalent that most families on earth has some degree of experience with it. Jolie bares her breasts and heavily tattooed body to the camera – this trivial representation could be interpreted as a courageous gesture at a time when most female nudity is frowned upon in mainstream cinema. Half naked or not, Jolie is as magnetic as ever, successfully carrying the weight of a relatively demanding performance on her shoulders (and chest).
The most significant problem with this 106-minute film is that the secondary characters don’t tie in very well with the two protagonists, Maxine and Ada. For example, Ella Rumpf plays quiet and observant make-up artist Angele (Ella Rumpf), who has the habit of transposing the trials and tribulations of her work environment onto fiction. Perhaps the director intentionally left these stories loosely disconnected: the film title Couture literally means “sewing”, suggesting a patchwork of stories. Either way, the outcome feels unbalanced. Plus, the two leads have very little interaction with each other. That’s very strange, particularly as these two characters are working together on a major project.
Despite the narrative flaws, some scenes are truly remarkable. The final fashion show is exuberant. The 49-year-old French writer and director inserts elements of metatextuality (film-within-a-film) and horror into the eagerly-awaited performance to dazzling results. A furious, rain-ravaged Ada is an image difficult to forget. The cinematography is signed by French DoP André Chemetoff. All in all, this is a beautiful and heartwarming drama. A fine piece of cinema, with a few loose ends.
Couture showed in the Official Competition of the 73rd San Sebastian International Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. The topic of terminal and/or aggressive cancer seems to be a favourite for Rebordinos and his team. Just last year, there were three such films in the main competition: Costa-Gavras’s devastatingly beautiful Last Breath, epic and gorgeously-shot Chinese drama Bound in Heaven (Xin Huo), Pilar Palomero’s finely acted and superbly humanistic Glimmers, and Britain’s very unusual romcom We Live in Time (by John Crowley, featuring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh).
Also showing at the Tallinn Black Nights, and at the Red Sea International Film Festival.
