3/4 Stars
Rated R
Starring Gaspard Ulliel
Directed by Bertrand Bonello
“Decadence attracts me,” Yves Saint Laurent once said, explaining that for him, decadence meant something new being born from decay. The French film dramatizing the rise and summit of his career in fashion, Saint Laurent, is infused with decadence and the embrace of the new, as well as love for tradition, a tireless work ethic and many other apparent polarities for a gay man whose signal accomplishment was dressing the women of the world—and doing it beautifully.
Steadily paced at two and a half hours, Saint Laurent represents an immersion into the life of its subject and his epoch, especially 1967 through 1976. It is as unlike a Hollywood biographical picture as possible for an account based on a real-life protagonist. The three-act structure is jettisoned; there is a timeline, but one that wraps around itself and digresses into flashbacks and fast-forwards. There isn’t much of a linear story but there are characters, especially Saint Laurent, magnificently embodied with fragile hauteur by Gaspard Ulliel.
The portrait that emerges is of a driven and troubled artist who wanted to be Matisse but settled on being Coco Chanel. He had experienced bullying and tragedy and was determined not to be kept down. He worked long hours at his drawing table, where he maintained the high couture tradition while embracing ready-to-wear, and spent long nights in glittering discotheques and dark streets, where he trolled for anonymous sex while maintaining long-term relationships, especially with his companion and business partner Pierre Bergé. He drank too much and swallowed too many pills, hurting himself while luxuriating in an environment of acutely cultivated taste.
With Saint Laurent, French director Bertrand Bonello recreates the lush life of his subject, who blended the grandiosity of the Baroque with the sharp lines of Modernity in the clothing he designed as well as the way he composed his private hours.
Opens Friday, June 5, Oriental Theatre.
