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France · 2018
1h 14m
Director Olivier Meyrou
Starring Yves Saint-Laurent, Pierre Bergé, Laetitia Casta, Loulou de la Falaise
Genre Documentary
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The legendary fashion designer's final years are captured in this documentary through a panoramic montage of behind-the scenes footage, famous interviews, and important events. Although Saint-Laurent himself, seeming distant and remote, remains occasionally out-of-frame as his partner Pierre Bergé instead directs his fashion empire, the portrait of a vulnerable, yet optimistic genius still takes shape.
Whether you view it as a trenchant treatise on the contemporary effects of Marxism, or just a wonderfully odd glimpse into a fading star of the fashion industry, Celebration is at turns beguiling, fascinating, and true, which is what one should want and need out of a documentary.
An insightful character study, and an absolute must-watch for Saint-Laurent fans – or anyone with a remote interest in the fashion industry.
The Hollywood Reporter by Frank Scheck
Celebration ultimately resembles more of a snapshot than a fleshed-out portrait, but it's one that's likely to linger in your memory for a long time afterwards.
The New York Times by Glenn Kenny
Saint Laurent was essential to 20th-century culture, and Celebration shows the inevitable fading of glory as well as the enduring features of his life’s work.
Screen Daily by Jonathan Romney
An elegant, sometimes eerie film, Celebration does not editorialise: its only implicit commentary is a futuristic electronic score, which suggests that Saint-Laurent is something of an extra-terrestrial being. A tender, more melancholic work than its title would imply, Celebration should not be construed as a debunking of its subject, more as a gentle lament for an institution fading into the sunset.
Los Angeles Times by Katie Walsh
The peek into this world, at this time, feels like a rare treat, an unearthed gem released from a vault.
Olivier Meyrou’s ironically titled documentary weaves a tightly constructed story about success, power, and mortality.
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
Gives us an amazingly candid and rather shocking study of the legendary fashion designer, and his apparent physical and mental deterioration at the age of 60.
Celebration doesn’t feel entirely fair, but it’s a priceless addition to our understanding of how Yves Saint Laurent — the man, the myth, la marque — operated: a flawed film whose mere existence makes it essential viewing.
It remains an eye-opening and artful look at just what it took to create that couture, that image and that legacy and that brand — still vital and popular all these years after the shy dreamer’s death.
The sordid odyssey of Johnny Fletcher, from dilapidated London flat to the squalid nocturnal streets, a depiction of a struggle.
Sing out loud a lifetime aria
When you're not in love, what do you do?