Saint Laurent

YSL was an artsy mess, so I suppose it's fitting that this film is as well. It looks gorgeous and has a great time rubbernecking Yves's hedonistic ways, but it's also pretty mean-spirited. It doesn't attempt to understand Yves or what drove him or his creative process. He's just a rich, spoiled jerk in this film.

Also, I enjoy a good nonlinear art film, but they are hard to pull off. This film is very hard to follow if you don't already know YSL's biography and work, and there are many long, pointless scenes that are supposed to be symbolic but don't really add up to much. It does have some fantastic performances and great set pieces, and if you like reveling in 1970s hedonism, you'll enjoy it on that level.

Sometimes formulas and conventions are a good thing. The rival film to this one Yves St. Laurent may be far more conventional, but it is at least coherent and has genuine empathy for Yves and Pierre. Plus, it features the actual clothes Yves's designed.

If you're a student of fashion, it's fun to compare the two films, but I think the more conventional one wins the day simply for being a more pleasant experience to watch.

This was one of the most boring films I've ever seen, and that's coming from someone who is interested in haute couture and Yves Saint Laurent. Slow paced would be an understatement: it moved at snail's pace and created the impression that Yves led one of the dullest lives in the history of man.

Most reviewers rate this biopic as being superior to the other one released in the same year, titled Yves Saint Laurent (which was endorsed by Pierre Berge with access to the YSL archives). However, while I wasn't enamoured of this latter version (it too was on the boring side), the characters were more fleshed out and believable, and more of the important people in YSL's life were included in that picture than this one.

The three stars I gave this movie were all for Helmut Berger as the ageing Yves Saint Laurent. Having seen footage of YSL in the later stages of his life, Helmut's portrayal was eerily accurate.

I want to love this film - the acting is wonderful and the art direction is spectacular - the cinematography, locations, costuming, even the soundtrack. However, the story is disjointed and badly edited.

It is also essential that the viewer knows the characters in YSL's life before seeing this film because there are many oblique references to people that will go over most people's heads and not enough explanation to understand who some of these people were and why they were so influential. There are also a couple of gratuitous nude scenes that cheapen the film because they look like a desperate attempt to win over an audience by exposing the considerable asset of the lead actor. The film also suffers from being a smidgen too long - I was restless in my chair by the end.

Despite this, there are some excellent scenes in this film that are beautifully written, acted, and shot. The opening sequence in the workrooms in 1967 is elegant, the woman buying the pant suit is poignant, the party scenes at the discotheques in the 1960s and 1970s are exciting to watch, and the split screens with the fashions and newsreel films are clever.

I couldn't help but think that a fresh edit might make this a much better film.

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.

If you want to drown in a sea of poseurs and take two and one half hours to do it, then this flick is just your perfect rusty old skiff.

Honestly two and one half hours of poseurs, poseurs, poseurs, poseurs. Poseurs smoking, smoking, smoking! Poseurs drinking, drinking, drinking. Poseurs on drugs, dope, drugs, dope, etc. Poseurs in elegant surroundings, fancy over decorated rooms. Poseurs in clothes that look like they were heisted from a mob bosses closet.

Poseurs whispering, whispering, whispering! There is dialog in this flick but the entire cast seemed reluctant to actually speak it in a normal vocal tone. More poseurs, male, female. Party poseurs! Parties in very artsy settings. More lavish rooms for this cast of poseurs to be photographed in. And somewhere squeezed into this sea of monotonous poseurs is a story, an actual plot line. But you will drown long before you become aware of it!