Saint Laurent

I thought this would be an interesting and exciting movie, was I wrong. The film maker makes the wild 1960s, the dull and boring 1960s. Frontal male nudity and gay sex is about as shocking as watching as a turtle slowly walking around the floor. There is no life to this film. No feelings. It is all show with long and dull scenes which are meant to be "earth shattering", but are just boring. A beautiful model is shown dancing by herself twice in a club in a nothing scene which goes on and on. A group of investors are shown talking in a room for an extremely dull ten minute scene with lousy acting, again void of any emotion. I give it a 4 out of 10 only for the beautiful women and lovely fashion. The acting and the screenplay rate a minus 100.

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.

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.

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!