Review: Saint Laurent

Was Yves Saint Laurent a fascinating man? If the mere existence of a handful of documentaries and the two recent competing French biopics (Jalil Lespert's Yves Saint Laurent and Bertrand Bonello's Saint Laurent) are anything to go by, then he must have been. Both films have their merits, but neither captured the man in full. Yet was there a full man to capture? Perhaps, as a moment mentions in Bonello's film, Laurent was simply perfume.

That specific moment, an imagined exchange between two models, recreates Helmut Newton's famous photograph of Saint Laurent's "Le Smoking" tuxedo suit, a design that married masculinity and femininity. It was not a wholly original concept - Marlene Dietrich immortalised the seductive allure of a woman in a suit in 1930's Morocco - but, like the majority of Saint Laurent's work, it looked to the past to inspire the present. This idea of resurrected remembrances references another famous Frenchman, Marcel Proust, for whom time did not exist as a linear concept. Bonello employs title cards to mark the time period, but the film's narrative unfolds in an impressionistic, kaleidoscopic chronology, freely interspersing fact with fiction and history with memory, whilst deploying style as substance and texture as psychology.

The film begins in 1974 as Saint Laurent (Gaspard Ulliel, sinewy as smoke) checks into a Parisian hotel as Mr. Swann, a deliberate callback to Proust's protagonist. Looking out at the Eiffel Tower, he rings up a publication, agrees to do an interview, and proceeds to tell of his time in a military hospital, where he was heavily sedated and subjected to electroshock therapy. Bonello then rewinds to 1967 as the designer sits amidst the sterility of his atelier. Seamstresses painstakingly create mocks of his sketches only to have their work wasted with the latest round of feedback from the master. More lapel and more overlap to give it volume eradicates the 180 hours spent on one piece. A seamstress is in tears - she just cannot get the tension right in the fabric. Precision and perfection are mandatory in the house of Saint Laurent.

The master, though, is bored and burdened. There's too much to do - Deneuve's wardrobe for her film with Truffaut, something for Françoise Hardy, and costumes for the newest play by Marguerite Duras - and too many expectations to fulfill. Inspiration is all but non-existent until, one night in a club, he spots the blond, leather-clad androgyne Betty Catroux (the striking Aymeline Valade), who stalks her way to the dance floor to let loose under the sharded glass ceiling above her. Saint Laurent literally sees himself in her, and she serves as inspiration for "Le Smoking." A similar scene is fashioned for Loulou de la Falaise (the enchanting Léa Seydoux), the glamorous bohemian whose mix and match style - turban and blouse from a flea market, jacket by Ossie Clark, skirt from her mother, bracelet that was a napkin ring she stole from a restaurant - he deems "a mess, but I love it." Both women were not just muses, but different expressions of himself.

As for the men in Saint Laurent's life, there were two pivotal figures: Pierre Bergé (Jérémie Renier) and Jacques de Bascher (Louis Garrel). Pierre was his business and life partner whose management of his lover's business affairs would secure the independence of the YSL name and expand the brand into other means of profitability. If Pierre was the father figure, lover, and protector that he often took for granted, then Jacques was a most dangerous passion. Their initial encounter - again in a nightclub - has the future lovers eyeing one another across a bustling dance floor as the camera pans from one seducer to another. Their liaison marks Saint Laurent's deepest descent into drugs and debauchery.

Bonello is a superb visual storyteller, there is no denying that fact. Saint Laurent is a tad overlong, and sometimes completely nonsensical. "I don't understand words anymore," Betty mumbles at one point. "[The images] are so beautiful, you don't need to," Jacques replies, perfectly summing up Bonello's mission statement. One doesn't obtain a clearer understanding of Saint Laurent by the film's end - though his narcissism, childishness, and self-absorption are more to the fore here than in Lespert's film - but one is so immersed in the aural and visual delights that perhaps one doesn't care.

There are many strokes of sheer brilliance in Bonello's film - that twinning of Betty and Saint Laurent; the split screen montage that juxtaposes his collections against the tumult happening in the real world; the second split screen that harkens to Mondrian's compositions; his nods to Luchino Visconti in the casting of Visconti regular Helmut Berger, the lavish decadence of the mise-en-scène, and the languorous pacing of the film's second half; and the astounding recreation of Saint Laurent's 1976 Moroccan-inspired collection, an extravagant swirl of colour and fabric. The overall costuming is an especially impressive feat for Anaïs Romand who, unlike Yves Saint Laurent's Madeline Fontaine, did not have Bergé's permission to access the designer's archives. The accomplishments of cinematographer Josee Deshaies, editor Fabrice Rouaud, and production designer Katia Wyszkop are similarly first-rate.

The attention to detail is noteworthy as Saint Laurent was certainly one who lavished severe consideration on each and every person or thing that surrounded him. For the French-Algerian designer, the effect was arguably more important than the thing itself. Beauty was happiness for Saint Laurent, who managed to achieve the former but always fell short of the latter.

Saint Laurent

Directed by: Bertrand Bonello

Written by: Thomas Bidegain, Bertrand Bonello

Starring: Gaspard Ulliel, Léa Seydoux, Jérémie Renier, Louis Garrel, Aymeline Valade, Helmut Berger, Dominique Sanda, Amira Casar, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Jasmine Trinca, Brady Corbet