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.
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.