Gordon-11
This film tells the story of the lost and hedonistic lifestyle of the young fashion genius Yves Saint Laurent, and his life in the later years.The film starts off interesting, as it starts the story from Yves already having success in the fashion world. While there's some mention of his work, the emphasis of the plot is on Yves' partying, drugs and alcohol. The very handsome actor playing Saint Laurent helps to keep viewers interested, but unfortunately the interest is not sustained because I find the last hour of the film disjointed, unfocused and frankly aimless. The film cuts from his youth to his older days continuously for no good reason, and scenes are not connected to tell a cohesive story. Subplots are poorly explained and not followed through. For example, we don't know what the outcome is after the long first business meeting with the Americans. Then, the brief coverage of "opium" isn't followed up. What Pierre says to Jacques is an annoying mystery as well. Then the film cuts from the fashion show to various stages of his life in a random manner, that I became completely confused. I was waiting for the film to end, but it just wouldn't end. I was disappointed by this film.
brnk4
If you're new to the whole idea of Yves Saint Laurent, you'd probably like to watch the other movie, YSL by Jalil Lespert. It presents Yves' life in a fairly linear fashion, with reason and logic (and history, nonetheless) determining the scenes following one another, brightened by a wide range of characters of all types and colors. However, while watching it, I felt as if I would have been sitting at a boring History class with a boring old school teacher who was bored himself with what he was teaching. I'd name this History teacher Pierre Berge, Yves' long term companion and lover, as despite the film bearing the name Yves Saint Laurent, after Pierre is introduced 13 minutes into the movie, the whole perspective from which everything that happens is presented shifts, not sure if willingly or not. Either way, if I'm interested in Pierre's perspective, I should be watching a movie called Pierre Berge, right? Bertrand Bonello's version, SL, on the other hand, is everything YSL is not. It works not only as satisfying our (presupposed) need to know more about YSL's life, but it does it with style, while still being able to entertain, in a way a conscious filmmaker would do, who has a certain public in mind, to trigger their points of interest. We're talking about non-linear storytelling wrapped in a clever structure which stands far from messing us up with its seemingly disorganized, jumpy time line, but it adds color, life, and impression to the same skeleton that YSL just wasn't able to. YSL is more of a documentary consisting of reconstructed scenes, whereas with SL you have scenes that work within themselves, not only in the context of the whole movie. Here I felt the focus having been really put on his passion, the way he worked, his environment, his temper when he worked, his temper when he was off-work (still looking for models), the esteem and respect that was given to him by everyone who worked for him. The time period of 1968-1970 is presented in a highly ironic way, in the form of a split-screen, where on one side we see political events of the real world while on the other side we see models presenting the spring and autumn collections of a totally different high-end world, as suggested by the split screen, yet both of them occurring in the same year, in the same location. A home-party scene is reminiscent of Chabrol's scene of the same nature in Les Cousins (1959). We see impressionistic, abstract scenes and shots which instead of halting our flow, along with the excellently chosen, and used music engulfs us further in. On the other hand there's the business meeting scene with an American shareholder, in which the prolonged overlapping dialog of Pierre, the translator and the American suck us back into the realistic aspect of this seemingly dreamy world filled with art, beautiful women, and bohemian lifestyle. About one hour and a half into the movie the fourth wall is obliterated with a cute little reflexive scene which looks like a one-shot commercial. I could go on and on.Bonello's SL goes after your feelings, consciously and successfully using the language of cinema, with all its tricks up its sleeve, magically unraveling the magic of Yves.
sjrenter
Looked forward to this version of the YSL saga. Was disappointed in the first, Yves Saint Laurent, so had high hopes for this one which was favorably reviewed. One wonders what film the NYT reviewer had watched? This mess is not properly a film, at best it is an indulgent impressionist biography. There is no narrative, no story-line, no characters (let alone character development). I doubt that without some knowledge of YSL's life one could follow the film. I even doubt that one would be interested in doing so. The actors are first class but given their abilities they are as wasted as was my time being bored for the 150 minutes of creeping, not running, time of Saint Laurent.
Tuco-23
Saw it two times in cinema. It isn't easy film. Gaspard Ulliel is fantastic as Saint Laurent, hypnotic character. You don't need to like him but you can't take your eyes of him. This isn't standard biopic I think lot of people expectd, it's art, little bit surreal and fragmented. It can resemble P.T. Anderson's The Master for example. Music and camera-work is top notch. I can see why it isn't widely praised but it's definitely a movie to see and a bold director's vision. France has balls that they sent this as their Oscar competitor. Didn't see the other version but I'm going to. Doubt that it will be as good as this.
