I’ve seen the YSL clothing logo for years and am familiar with the name Yves Saint Laurent as a clothing designer. Other than that, however, I really don’t know very much about the French fashion icon. Focusing on the height of his creative output from 1967 to 1976, Bertrand Bernello’s Saint Laurent is an informative biographical film that shows us a talented and innovative (yet troubled) creative talent. Saint Laurent is portrayed by Gaspard Ulliel as a chain-smoker who parties with a harem of male and female companions and counts Andy Warhol as a fan of his work. Sounds pretty interesting, right? However, despite the fact that the film alerts us, in bold red numbers, of the chronology of events by year, the narrative is offered in seemingly random snippets of events rather than a cohesive story, with nothing threading it all together in any obvious way. As a result, we’re offered an equal mix of somewhat interesting looks into his creative and social life and utterly mundane moments that linger longer than needed.
One of the main problems with Saint Laurent is that it does little to explain why Saint Laurent is who he is, how he became the celebrated designer he became. A quick glance at his Wikipedia page offers more insight into his background than this movie does. (Apparently there is another movie called Yves Saint Laurent that provides a better look at his early life, but I haven’t seen that movie.) As a result, it’s difficult to find any emotional connection to Saint Laurent or any other character in the movie. In fact, my strongest emotional response was during a drug-and-alcohol fueled scene that finds a bloody Saint Laurent passed out on top of a broken liquor bottle. But it’s not his debauched antics that are worrisome. Instead its his beloved dog who, after ingesting a spilled bottle of pills, lies across the room spasming. Ailing animals always tug at an audience’s heartstrings. But when I’m more concerned about the dog than I am about the main character (especially when that main character is an actual person and not a fictional character), the film is failing on an important level.
As Saint Laurent enters its final act, we see the designer having his most professional success while suffering from health issues and personal setbacks. This is the most engaging portion of the movie as things are simultaneously falling into place and falling apart. We also see an older Saint Laurent reflecting on his successes and losses, which is somewhat confusing at first given that there is no obvious indication that the film has jumped to the future. I don’t so much mind the back and forth between the ailing younger Saint Laurent and the retrospective elder Saint Laurent (especially since the latter scenes trump the 1976 rumors of his death). However, given that the rest of the film clearly indicates what year it is, it takes a moment to figure out what is going on (and when it’s happening).
Ultimately, Saint Laurent feels like a collection of fabrics and sketches scattered about rather than assembled into a finished piece. Perhaps Bernello is trying to replicate the sometimes haphazard nature of Saint Laurent’s own clothing designs and I’m just missing the point. Even if that’s the case, however, the film could benefit from trimming away some of the monotonous moments and focusing on simpler, more exciting design.
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