How do you make a film about Yves Saint Laurent completely lacking in style? That seems to be the raison d'être behind Bertrand Bonello’s Saint Laurent, a film that eschews “typical” biopic conventions to explore the life of a very troubled man. As played by Gaspard Ulliel, Yves is a timid hedonist, an oxymoron of a man who speaks softly but has very little reservations about giving in to his darkest desires. Even though when we meet him, he is the designer behind one of the most important fashion brands in the world, he has no reservations about gulping down endless bottles of champagne when he goes out to clubs, or partying instead of getting to work on new designs. While it can be argued that Saint Laurent, just like any other person, was more than just his work, the film offers little justification as to why we should sit through a film about his life.
In his mission of escaping Hollywood biopic techniques, Bonello dedicates so little time to showing Yves at work that it’s hard to keep our interest in what’s going on. Since the plot takes place during the decade during which Yves drowned his sorrows in drugs, alcohol and an affair with the gigolo/model Jacques de Bascher (Louis Garrel), it’s understandable why he would see the need to show us how low he could and would fall, but since he has offered us little in the way of justification, we don’t really know why we should want to see this man pull through in the end, other that is than plain human empathy.
Bonello seems to have shot the film without a clear mission; it tends to sensationalize, then shy away, then provoke again, all of which is done in an impossibly displeasing aesthetical manner (not even all the split screens meant to evoke YSL’s Mondrian dress help make the film feel truly alive). Bonello’s technical work is too obvious, his screenplay (co-written with Thomas Bidegain) almost laughably unsubtle. As Jacques looks at Yves from across a dancefloor, a song about “trying to catch your eye” plays in the background, and what does he say when they finally meet? “I was trying to catch your eye”.
For all its inconsistencies the one good thing in the film is Jérémie Renier who plays Yves’ life and business partner Pierre Bergé, always the tragic figure in the YSL saga, the man who helped keep the business afloat and then had to endure the loss of the man he loved. Renier, who always gives sensitive performances, is quietly heartbreaking here. He is the only remotely recognizable human in the film, which ironically invalidates Bonello's desperate need to stay away from emotions. Other moments, including a devastating performance from Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, make it seem that like his protagonist in the film, Bonello didn't concentrate too hard on what worked and instead of happening to the film, he simply let the film happen to him.
