McQueen

McQueen is a haunting story of extravagant talent and inescapable private sorrow, made with exquisite craftsmanship worthy of its subject. While a narrative biopic has been in development for years, this excellent documentary delivers an eye-popping, emotionally wrenching experience that paints a fully dimensional portrait of a complex artist.

Even if the dramas and dictates of couturiers and catwalks mean little to you, it is hard to resist the propulsive energy that director Ian Bonhote and co-director and writer Peter Ettedgui bring to the story of a designer whose background, beliefs and gifts were not what one would expect.

The film opens with a camera slowly swirling around a skull. Red droplets splash on the cranium. In Michael Nyman’s score, a brass section booms rhythmically like blood in your ears. The effect is brooding and provocative. It’s pure drama. It’s perfectly Alexander McQueen.

A film that’s refreshingly free of the gushing sound bites from sycophantic celebrities that too often dominate fashion documentaries.

[A] sombre, thorough, intelligent and informative documentary.

This is a fascinating portrait of an artist.

Bonhôte and Ettedgui leave viewers winded from the pace of the ascent. But much the way we know that there was a rise, we also know a fall is imminent. This is where McQueen wobbles.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Well-done doc of a person with whom I had zero familiarity. It does a great job tracking Lee's career, and the interviews with his family & co-workers are excellent. I wish it brought us into his personal life in a more tangible way. The "skull" interludes are interesting, but perhaps a bit overdone.

Alexander McQueen was a bold, genius designer. He was also a tortured soul. This doc offers opportunities to watch him work on his incredible creations. Fortunately, there's lots of footage that provides bits of insight, which is supplemented by interviews with family, friends and co-workers. It's fascinating to see him rise from struggling and scrappy to the leader of more than one major fashion house. Sadly, the constant darkness that hangs over his life dominates the story , so much so that it starts to drag down the momentum in the final third (the extended segment on Isabella Blow's death didn't help). Even so, the filmmakers have used some interesting animations to symbolize various parts of McQueen's career and they've effectively told the story of this fascinating and sad artist.

Fashion designer Alexander McQueen was no doubt a generational talent, one of those burn too bright and die too soon sensations that make great material for a documentary. In turn, the problem for documentarians is trying to create a piece of work that lives up to the real-life hype. Co-directors Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui have done an admirable job at capturing the light-and-dark duality of the designer's extraordinary career. However, the first half of the documentary was so zoomed in on everything they were featuring on screen that it's actually burdensome on the eyes, and the rest of the film, while certainly worth the price of admission, is far less groundbreaking than the man they set out to memorialize.