Saint Laurent *** (2014, Gaspard Ulliel, Louis Garrel, Jérémie Renier, Helmut Berger) – Classic Movie Review 12,669

Gaspard Ulliel stars as famed fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, with Louis Garrel as his lover and Jérémie Renier as his partner, in the stylish, often fascinating 2014 epic French biopic Saint Laurent.

Co-writer/ director Bertrand Bonello’s stylish 2014 epic French biographical drama film Saint Laurent tells aspects of the story of the famed fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent mostly from 1967 to 1976 when was at his peak. It stars Gaspard Ulliel as Yves Saint Laurent, Louis Garrel as his lover Jacques de Bascher, and Jérémie Renier as his business and life partner Pierre Bergé. It is an impressive, engrossing and often fascinating biopic, though immensely depressing and totally elusive.

What’s the point of it? The man likes cigarettes, alcohol, drugs and men, and was somehow driven to mental distraction, driving everyone else crazy too. He seems wilful, promiscuous, destructive, and none too loyal. In 1973, Yves Saint Laurent, the companion of Pierre Bergé, falls in love with Jacques de Bascher (who was Karl Lagerfeld’s companion). Saint Laurent and de Bascher embark on a destructive relationship, and Bergé threatens Bascher, who is forced to end his affair.

Yves Henri Donat Mathieu-Saint-Laurent (1 August 1936 – 1 June 2008).

To add to the depression, Gaspard Ulliel morphs, unconvincingly, into an ancient-looking Helmut Berger as Yves Saint Laurent at the end of the film, set in 1989. The old and wrecked Berger watches the young and lovely looking Berger in Visconti’s The Damned (shockingly) and listens to Callas (hauntingly) and views Madame de… (hauntingly), It’s poignant, but isn’t it a bit cheap?

The film wanders all over the place in a series of vignettes, without focus, but with much style. Some scenes are considerably more effective than others. One or two are exciting, even brilliant. Others dull and over-prolonged. At least, it respects YSL’s fashion sense, his sense of art and artistry, big time. It can’t help being a fashion parade, and doesn’t want to. This it can celebrate – unequivocally. The rest of his life, not so much. There’s way too much wallowing in self-oppressive gay-induced tragedy for comfort. Actually, this isn’t a film to look to for comfort. A film to look to for a wallow in self pity, There’s no joy here. Sad,

It’s a pleasure, honour and privilege to watch and celebrate Gaspard Ulliel in this film, giving his complex, considered all for it in a tricky task to keep up an impersonation for two and a half hours and not end up having it as a three-minute sketch. Less so is it a pleasure, and honour, to watch and celebrate Yves Saint Laurent here. The film ends with Saint Laurent in old age in his opulent Paris apartment surrounded by fine art and exotic possessions. He has everything but then again nothing. It is all pointless. Was that the point of it?  Or not?

And, after two and a half hours, I didn’t feel remotely informed about YSL’s life. That’s interesting, and so, I guess, is the film.

Bertrand Bonello, Gaspard Ulliel, and Jérémie Renier at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival.

Cast: Gaspard Ulliel as Yves Saint Laurent, Helmut Berger as Yves Saint Laurent in 1989, Jérémie Renier as Pierre Bergé, Louis Garrel as Jacques de Bascher, Léa Seydoux as Loulou de la Falaise, Amira Casar as Anne-Marie Munoz, Aymeline Valade as Betty Catroux, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi as Madame Duzer, Micha Lescot as Monsieur Jean-Pierre, Jasmine Trinca as Talitha Getty, Valérie Donzelli as Renée, and Dominique Sanda as Lucienne.

It received ten César Award nominations, but won only for Best Costume Design for Anaïs Romand, who surely deserved her win

Pierre Vital Georges Bergé (14 November 1930 – 8 September 2017).

Country: France, Belgium Genre: Drama, Romance, Biography

Release date: September 24, 2014.

Director: Bertrand Bonello.

Production: EuropaCorp, Mandarin Films, Orange Studio.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,669

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

Jacques de Bascher (8 July 1951 – 3 September 1989).