What a touching, intimate documentary! L’amour fou (meaning mad love in English, I think) revolves around Pierre Bergé and the love of his life – Yves Saint Laurent. A story that is intertwined with the selling of the antiques that constituted the fundament of their extremely (over-) decorated Paris apartment. The story telling is slow and low key, you mostly hear Pierre Bergé talking while images and movies from their joint life is shown on the screen. But this is no ordinary story, it’s a story about a young man suffering from a debilitating shyness and chronic depressions, who at the young age of 21 is chosen to take over the house of Dior. And how he around the same time met Pierre who would become his comrade in both in love and business until the death of YSL in 2008.
They make a fascinating couple. Pierre seems to have his head together at all times, somewhat bossy, and clearly a driving factor behind the Yves Saint Laurent fashion emporium. Yves on the other hand was sensitive, destructive, an addict, intensely artistic and a dreamer that oftentimes found the daily grind way too hard to deal with. Differences that put a lot of strain on their relationships, and there were split ups, but they always came back together.
L’amour fou is very respectfully told and at the same time brutally honest. I can really recommend this documentary. I’ve seen a couple of critics complaining that it’s too slow, but for me it was a breath of fresh air, seeing a movie that doesn’t rely on a high tempo to tell an engaging story.
Also Melissa gave a great reading suggestion in the comment field, The beautiful fall, a biography about Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent. I read this several years ago, before I started to blog, but I remember it being excellent and packed with juicy gossip. So definitely worth checking out.
————————–
About the competition, just a quickie note that I’m now hoping to be picked as one of the 10 finalists, which I will find out tomorrow. I’ll update you then, regardless of the results, before I run to the woods sobbing! Only team members can vote unfortunately. And thank you so much for the encouraging comments!
