Unauthorised Saint Laurent screens

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Unauthorised Saint Laurent screens

Saint Laurent, a controversial, no-holds-barred story of one of the 20th century’s greatest designers, screened in competition at Cannes on Saturday.

By (AP)

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Published: Mon 19 May 2014, 8:25 PM

Last updated: Fri 3 Apr 2015, 5:46 PM

Yves Saint Laurent’s surviving lover Pierre Berge didn’t want director Bertrand Bonello’s unauthorised biopic of the fashion icon to see the light of day.

Saint Laurent, a controversial, no-holds-barred story of one of the 20th century’s greatest designers, screened in competition at Cannes on Saturday.

The two-and-a-half hour feature examines how the late, great couturier’s life was torn apart by casual sex and drugs and depicts his charged erotic relationship with a third man, Jacques de Bascher, who died of AIDS in 1983.

Bonello’s Saint Laurent is dark and sexually explicit, featuring Gaspard Ulliel (pictured), who lost weight and bared all to play the title role, and Louis Garrel in the role of Jacques.

It’s the second feature film on the legendary designer with the dark rimmed spectacles in less than six months.

Unlike the first authorised film by Jalil Lespert, the Bonello project was publicly opposed by Saint Laurent’s surviving life and business partner, Berge.

Scenes of full nudity, drug taking and references to hard sexual practices litter the film, spliced with contrasting scenes of the precision of the fashion atelier.

The producer says the film was made not to attack Berge but to represent the truth behind the softly-spoken creator of the “Le Smoking,” who remains one of fashion world’s most enigmatic figures.


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