As its name suggests, the French film “Haute Couture” is about high fashion. But it doesn’t have ambitious designers nor fancy runway shows. Instead, Sylvie Ohion’s beautiful film depicts the work of the thin-fingered seamstresses, who take care of every stitch and wash their hands thoroughly before touching the precious silk fabrics. Dior’s sewing house is run by Esther, played by the great Natalie Bay, who, if she were British, would already have been awarded the title of aristocracy.
Every day, before going to work, Esther, who lives on the outskirts of Paris, talks to the roses she cultivates in her garden. One morning at the train station Tikka was stolen by two young women of Arab origin, Jad (Lina Khodri) and Suad (Soumayah Bocom). When they discover a “Jewish cross” in the bag, Suad says it will bring bad luck and pressures Judd to return the bag.
This is how Esther and Judd meet, and the veteran seamstress (whose Judaism does not become an issue in the film beyond the initial mention) offers the aimless young woman to work for her as an intern. To her surprise, the prickly and class-conscious Judd discovers that Abdel (who changed his name to Abel to obscure his origins) and Catherine, who grew up like her in the Saint-Denis neighborhood, half of whose residents are Muslim, also work at the haute couture tailoring house. In the following days, Judd repeatedly pulls out her street cat’s claws, but Esther is in no hurry to give her up.
“Haute Couture” unfolds a classic story about the mentor and the reluctant apprentice, which is also the story of today’s France. The young friends Judd and Suad, who live from day to day and dissect fashion products for fun, do not consider themselves French at all. Esther, whose mother also worked as a seamstress for Dior, represents the old and tailoring France (all the dresses in the new collection shine in Lebanon) which opens its doors to the daughter of immigrants and offers her a profession that brings with it an identity and a future.
But the film does not remain at the symbolic level, but rather shapes the characters and the relationships between them well, against the background of the meticulous work in the sewing house. As mentioned, this is not a story about the French dream, but about the working women who maintain it. And it’s nice to see the “naturalization” process that Judd is going through, without losing any of the energy and bravado of her character. The naturalistic and not very meticulous photography also contributes to the vitality of the film.
The next big French star? Lina Hadouri in “Haute Couture” (Photo: PR)
The plot is not without clichés – the dramatic line dedicated to Esther’s estranged and missing daughter, for whom Judd seems to fill her place, is not developed enough. This is compensated by the pleasant humor, which stems from the dynamic between the heroines and the secondary characters, including Judd’s trans friend, who comes to take care of Esther when she collapses due to diabetes. It is an optimistic and sympathetic film, and there is only one racist character in it – a seamstress who tries to put legs (or actually stab fingers) for Judd – and she does not receive support from the other facts.
Algiers-born Lina Khoudary – who looks like Ashley Judd’s younger sister – is a rising star in France. Two years ago she won the César Award for the most promising actress, after already picking up an award at the Venice Film Festival. Next year we will see her alongside an impressive cast of stars in a new French adaptation of “The Three Musketeers”, and it seems that there is no clearer sign of assimilation into French culture than this classic (she will play Constance Boncier, the queen’s dressmaker and d’Artagnan’s lover).
Bay is, as mentioned, not only a wonderful actress, but also one of the prominent icons of French cinema – in her fifty years on the screen, she had the privilege of working with the great directors (Truffaut, Godard, Tavernier, Chevrole), and most of her memorable performances have a combination of refinement and humanity. The teaming of the two actresses side by side in Ohion’s second film (seven years have passed since the first) is also a comment on the changing tradition of French cinema. And this is a note worth seeing.
3.5 stars. Haute couture directed by: Sylvie Ohion. With Natalie Bay, Lina Khodri. France 2021, 100 min.