Filmed over the course of three years,the big screen documentary Celebration, a portrait of fashion colossus Yves Saint Laurent’s final show was suppressed right after its first and only public screening at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival. The film was blocked by YSL’s business (and on-and-off romantic) partner Pierre Berge, who objected to the couturier’s portrayal as frail and not quite all there, and to his own depiction of being the behind the scenes mastermind. (The dynamic between the two is said to have inspired Paul Thomas Anderson’s depiction of Daniel Day-Lewis and Lesley Manville’s characters in Phantom Thread.)
Berge finally relented in 2015 (he died in 2017), and thus Celebration is finally available after a decade of collection dust.
The documentary presents an opulent and immersive behind-the-scenes look at haute couture designer Yves Saint Laurent’s final show and is a priceless addition to being able to understand of the man, the myth that is Yves Saint Laurent.
