Purely Joyful Movie!

just watch it!

Excellent, a Must See

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

This interesting documentary, directed by Frederic Tcheng (Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel), gives us a behind-the-scenes look inside the House of Dior, in Paris. It centers on the newly hired Creative Director Raf Simons, along with his right-hand man Pieter Mulier, as they prepare for Simons' first haute couture show, to be held in just 8 weeks.Normally, a show such as this would take 4 to 6 months to prepare, so we'll see first hand the stress and uncertainties Simons will face as he gets to know the staff and the operations of the company. As he faces this extreme deadline, we will even be privy to his own personal concerns, including references to what certainly seemed like possible anxiety attacks.The film is cleverly interspersed with old film clips of the founder of the company, the renowned designer Christian Dior, who died in 1957. Dior will also narrate these clips in a most haunting way, also exposing his personal doubts as he prepared for his first haute couture show many decades before.Overall, although I admittedly know nothing about haute couture, I still found this documentary to be most interesting, as we see how what seems to be chaos, deadlines , and frenzied work lead in the end to a most amazing finished product.

Like most people, my exposure to haute couture comes mostly from Vogue magazine and the "what are you wearing" interviews done on the red carpet. I expected this documentary to be a red carpet parade of elegant Dior couture, but instead saw a film that spends the majority of its time in the atelier (workroom) of the House of Dior to chronicle the less elegant process of creating a couture collection. The creative process takes us from Raf Simon's vision as the new artistic director for the House of Dior, to a complete couture collection, and it is a thrill ride. There is a necessary tension in Simon's need to be true to his own vision whilst being true to Dior and the film does a wonderful job of finding those synergies between Simon and Dior, both in their collections and as people. Layer that with a wonderful study in creative collaboration as the craftspeople who work at the atelier (some for 20 or 30+ years) meet and learn how to support Raf and his first ever couture collection. I have a new appreciation for the art of haute couture after seeing this film. If I only had the budget!

"Dior and I" (2014 release from France; 90 min.) brings a close-up look at the fashion house of Christian Dior as it exists today. As the documentary opens (in 2012), the CEO of Christian Dior introduces a new creative director to the staff, a Belgian guy named Raf Simons. Raf is new to the "haute couture" as his background really is in "pret-a-porter" (ready to wear) and mostly for men on top of that. So this is a daring choice, and not one without risks. On top of that, Raf only has 8 weeks to come up with a new collection. And as if that isn't enough, Raf's use of French is okay but not fluent (he hails from Dutch-speaking Antwerp, Belgium, home of many other notable fashion designers). How will Raf do? Will his first collection be a success? To tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.Couple of comments: first, this is the latest documentary from writer-director Frédéric Tcheng, who most recently brought us the delightful "Diane Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel". Second, the challenges that Raf Simons is facing are significant from the get-go. Not only because of the ridiculous time constraints (normally a new collection gets started on 4 to 6 months out, not 8 weeks), but also because of Simons' personality, which isn't the easiest, and his transition to designing haute couture for women, rather than pret-a-porter for men. Along the way, we get to know many other characters, including Pieter Mulier, another Dutch-speaking Belgian who came with Raf and is his trusted right-hand man, and of course the French atelier workers. The tension builds up as we get closer to the deadline for presenting the new collection. Watching how Raf deals with the pressure on the day of the collection's premiere, that alone is worth seeing this documentary for.I recently saw this at the Landmark E Street Cinema in Washington DC. The matinée screening where I saw this at was very well attended, somewhat to my surprise to be honest. But I guess it just shows there really is an audience for a top-notch documentary on fashion. If this is your kind of thing, I'd readily suggest you check this out, be it in the theater or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray.

This is a very entertaining film in its own right, but that which I enjoyed about it most, as a common working guy, with no artistic pretensions worth speaking of, is the way in which the various key characters featured have all managed to convince themselves that what they do is essential to some great endeavour! Well, mes amis, you are only fancy-dan dressmakers, and if you gave up and went on to a different job, you would soon be replaced! The school jumpers my Ma used to knit for me were as valuable as what you do- pity no-one ever had a 350,000 euro account with her! But, as I said, a very entertaining film, and these are not the only people who think highly of themselves - film critics fall into the same trap (not that I am one). General Yen