L'Amour Fou

Director: Pierre Thoretton
Year Released: 2010
Rating: 1.0

A crazy love for riches and art? Certainly. A crazy love between two men, fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent and longtime partner and lover Pierre Bergé? Not exactly. Director Thoretton documents the sale of the ungodly amount of artifacts YSL and Bergé accumulated over the years, allowing Bergé to do almost all the talking - it says only a little about Saint-Laurent's talents as a couturier, and much more about his taste for pricey trinkets. Bergé is too calm, non-offensive, measured and political to make for a compelling narrator - which goes against his reputation for being fiery and difficult (ask the great American designer Tom Ford) - and the documentary expects us to believe Bergé is sad about selling off billions of Euros worth of items (not having YSL give his side makes things decidedly lopsided). Other (equally flawed) documentaries have already been made about Saint-Laurent's creative process: this is only for those who miss watching (and being sickened by) Robin Leach's Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.