Celebration (NR)

synopsis

A fascinating, long-suppressed documentary on the legendary Yves Saint Laurent, commissioned by his business partner (and former lover) Pierre Bergé - and then shelved for more than a decade when Bergé decided it was too revealing. Filming as the proverbial fly-on-the-wall over three years, as YSL became increasingly frail and incommunicado, Meyrou captures the last of the great haute couture houses. Seamstresses, cutters (les petites mains) and models work frantically to finesse the tiniest adjustments (the hair of a frog), as the principals undergo nothing less than existential crises (YSL: poignant and morose; Bergé: acerbic and overbearing). An intimate evocation of the complex relationship between two of fashion's most brilliantly creative and profoundly idiosyncratic men.