YSL – L`amour fou

“Yves Saint Laurent – L`amour fou”. This is the name of tonight`s movie and, as expected, it has proved to be a perfect choice!
I saw it in a cozy cinema in the heart of Amsterdam (Cine Center), with a nice coffee bar at the entrance and with only 4 projection rooms.
As usually, I got there just two minutes before the movie started, so I had to grab the coffee I ordered at the bar and take into the cinema hall. This was funny because the coffee was served into a nice porcelain cup, with a porcelain little plate under and a tiny little spoon.
However, the experience of sipping coffee from an elegant cup while watching a movie at the cinema, was really nice. And I was not the only one! Now and then, during the movie, you could hear different sounds, such as the sound of a cup gently touching the plate or that of a cup falling down and rolling under the chairs.
Coming back to the movie itself, I have to admit that the mix of French speaking and Dutch subtitles has been quite an adventure! I had to eventually focus on the French, unless I wanted to get really confused and miss the whole meaning of the movie.
I found out many interesting facts about Yves Saint Laurent – the fashion icon – but, what interested me the most, about Yves Saint Laurent – the human being. In spite of the fact that as a designer he was world wide famous, as a person he remained as shy, depressive (his best friend said that Yves was happy on the average two times per year) and, just like every genius, he was feeling not understood and alone in his own world.
The speech the movie starts with, which is actually the speech made by Yves Saint Laurent when he decided to retire from the world of fashion, and then the event itself, presented towards the end, are highly emotional moments with the power to move anyone seeing this film.
Throughout the 90 minutes – the duration of the production – I have been offered the chance to travel to Morocco, London, New York and, of course, to Paris, the city where Saint Laurent spent most of his time.
I also entered his homes, where an impressive collection of art objects, procured along the years and all of them having a big sentimental value, were majestically decorating the living space, as one can only find into the house of a beautiful soul.
Besides that, I watched various video recordings, part of them official, others rather private and made just for fun, as we all do sometimes, I saw a series of photographs… In other words, I experienced fragments, precious parts of what used to be the life of a human being, in my opinion a life lived with intensity and elegance.

(Text: November 2010)