Saint Laurent (2014)
Directed by Bertrand Bonello

Film Review

Even though the biopic is enjoying a surge of popularity at the moment it seems a tad excessive that the same year should see the release of two films recounting episodes from the life of the same individual, namely France's foremost couturier Yves Saint Laurent.  In January 2014, Jalil Lespert brought us the "official" biography, namely the one sanctioned and supported by the designer's long-term partner Pierre Bergé.  Nine months on, we now have the "unofficial" version, the one that Bergé did his utmost to prevent being made and to which he gave not one iota of support.  Given that the director of this latter film, Bertrand Bonello, already has a reputation for being something of a loose canon, the second biography promises to be the most interesting and revealing of the two, and it very nearly lives up to this promise.

Whereas Lespert's more conventional biopic convincingly accounts for the creation of the YSL myth, focussing on the turbulent relationship between the legendary couturier and his driven business partner, Bonello's film probes a little more deeply and tries to deconstruct the myth, concentrating more on the man's less well-publicised debauched private life.  It feels like an improbable mélange of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu (in one scene, the central protagonist even adopts the name Swann).  Instead of the mysteriously ageing picture in an attic, Saint Laurent's secret life of sensual overload is 'paid for' by the artistic toll it takes on him, by the recurring bouts of depression that interrupt his flow of creative brilliance.  Bonello's Saint Laurent is the proverbial tortured artist, a contradictory character whose public image of a shy, inarticulate man hiding behind thick-lensed glasses is totally belied by the wild hedonist that he was in private.  YSL is shown to be a pathetic figure who was at the mercy of two opposing forces -  a burning desire to create that made him a fashion icon and an addiction to sensual excess that very nearly drove him to destruction.

Bonello's penchant for stylisation and raw sensuality, so evident in his acclaimed previous film L'Apollonide (2011), makes him particularly well-suited to attempt a biography of a creative icon whose grip on reality appeared tenuous at the best of times.  Saint Laurent is Bonello's most visually exciting film to date and succeeds on at least two counts, namely in transporting us back in time to that hugely eventful and unimaginably colourful decade (1967-1976) when YSL was at the height of his powers, and also in conveying a palpable sense of the burning frenzy within which the couturier lived.  Borrowing some of the cinematic devices that were very much in vogue in the 1970s (such as the use of split screens), the film has a keen retro feel as well as a vibrant modernity.  Occasionally, the stylisation is overdone to the extent that it distracts from the narrative, but the overall effect is positive - Bonello manages to bring his subject to life in a way that Lespert didn't quite manage to in his film. 

Pierre Niney's portrayal of Saint Laurent in Lespert's film was always going to be a hard act to follow but Gaspard Ulliel at least equals his predecessor's performance with an almost flawless imitation of the great man himself.  Like Niney, Ulliel (having had to lose 12 kilograms and study endless recorded interviews by YSL before filming commenced) has such a strong resemblance to the fashion designer that you could easily mistake him for the man himself.  (Watch Pierre Thoretton's 2010 documentary L'Amour fou and you'll be astounded by just how striking the resemblance is.)  Ulliel's convincing portrayal of the young Saint Laurent segues seamlessly into that of his older self, poignantly played by a 69-year-old Helmut Berger, who was famous in his youth as Luchino Visconti's chief muse.

Whilst this is unquestionably Ulliel's film, the supporting cast cannot be overlooked.  Jérémie Renier is a surprising choice for the part of the hard-headed businessman Pierre Bergé but is instantly believable in the role, not the Svengali-like professional pimp Bergé has sometimes been characterised as being, but a rounded individual genuinely committed to the success of the man who was his life's lodestone.  Equally impressive is Louis Garrel as YSL's flamboyant gay lover Jacques de Bascher, the main inspiration of rival designer Karl Lagerfeld.  Whilst the affair between Saint Laurent and de Bascher was mentioned in passing in Lespert's film, here it is given much greater weight and marks an intensely poignant episode in the lives of both men, a humane romantic interlude that is the film's scorching focal point.

Free of the controlling influence of Pierre Bergé, Bonello's uninhibited exposé of Yves Saint Laurent goes some way towards deconstructing one of France's greatest cultural myths but, once again, you are left with the impression that much has been left unsaid.  Despite Bonello's best efforts, the myth remains largely intact and, if anything, Saint Laurent emerges even more enigmatic and indecipherable.  Judged on its own merits, the film is hard to fault - the performances are excellent, the mise-en-scène unflaggingly inspired, the design and editing breathtaking.  The director's most accomplished work to date, it offers a badly needed, screamingly alive counterpoint to the slew of insipid, still-born biopics that have polluted cinema screens over the past few years.  But the question remains: who was Yves Saint Laurent?  Maybe we shall never know...

Film Synopsis

By 1967, Yves Saint Laurent is already established as one of the world's leading couturiers.  As he instigates a fashion revolution, YSL becomes the figurehead of a brand the like of which the world has never known.  The decade of free love was to mark his greatest professional triumphs, and his greatest personal disasters.  No star burns forever...