Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on April 2010

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There’s been a spate of films about fashion designer Coco Chanel recently, with both Audrey Tautou and Shirley MacLaine taking turns portraying the originator of the “Little Black Dress.” Film buffs up for yet another biopic can go to Ikebukuro cinema Shin-Bungeiza (03-3971-9422; www.shin-bungeiza.com) to catch Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky (2009; pictured) from April 11-14. The French-language film, which closed last year’s Cannes Film Festival, is set in 1920 (the year the iconic perfume Chanel No. 5 was created) and tells the story of the designer’s steamy affair with the frenetic Russian composer, two innovators who set the tone in their respective fields for the rest of the century.

Fans of French New Wave cinema should run, not walk, to Waseda Shochiku (03-3200-8968; www.wasedashochiku.co.jp) in Takadanobaba on April 10-16, for a Godard double feature. In the groundbreaking Masculin, féminin (1966), the director blurred lines between fiction and documentary, interviewing what he called “the children of Marx and Coca Cola” about matters of love and politics. Also showing is the controversial Hail Mary (1985), which tells the story of a virgin birth in a modern setting.

Asagaya art house Laputa (03-3336-5440; www.laputa-jp.com) continues its series Akajo Raisan (“In Praise of Wicked Women”), which runs until May 8. The 27 Japanese films being shown feature some of the most ruthless femme fatales ever to drip venom from the screen. Highlights include Chijin no Ai (“A Fool’s Love,” a.k.a. “Naomi,” 1967), based on a novel by Junichiro Tanizaki, and Youth of the Beast (1963), a story of Okinawan yakuza men and their women, helmed by oddball director Seijun Suzuki.