L’amour Fou

L’amour Fou is a documentary about fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and his lover/business partner, Pierre Bergé.


Forget the tulips. Nothing says springtime in New York like the start of the Tribeca Film Festival. Day and night for two straight weeks, movie-goers line up behind TFF’s signature fuchsia barricades outside downtown theaters, waiting to have their indie-film fantasies fulfilled. This year, there’s one movie in particular to lust for: L’Amour Fou — a documentary about fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and his lover/business partner, Pierre Bergé.

In February of 2009 — not long after Saint Laurent’s death — Bergé auctioned off the astounding art collection that the pair amassed over their fifty-year relationship, in what many called “the sale of the century.” The film uses the auction as occasion to look back at their lives as lovers, collectors and businessmen. As you would expect with any movie about Yves Saint Laurent, beauty abounds. But director Pierre Thoretton balances the story with the less picturesque sides of Laurent’s life (mental illness, drug use, melancholy), creating a more complete portrait of the artist, enigmatic, but attractive nonetheless. There are screenings of L’Amour Fou on April 26, 28 & 29 — and if you can’t make it to the festival, catch it in theaters around the United States on May 13.