The deluge of high fashion documentaries continues with Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui’s stylish, intense profile of the British designer whose talent and showmanship unsettled and amazed the world of haute couture until his suicide in 2010. Alexander McQueen was a middle-class East London kid whose tailoring apprenticeship led to a stint as an assistant to Romeo Gigli in Italy and then to London’s Central Saint Martins, where his 1992 graduation collection caught the eye of Isabella Blow, a flamboyant fashion writer who became his mentor. McQueen’s meteoric rise was fueled by innovative design combined with a theatrical form of runway drama employing themes that were unsettling, even macabre: one show was called “Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims,” another “Highland Rape.” Although such presentations brought charges of misogyny, they also gained him fame (or notoriety), but not necessarily wealth. The money came with his 1996 hiring by Givenchy. The film follows McQueen’s later provocative shows, while also documenting his increasing volatility and drug use, his weight-reduction surgery, and the deterioration of his relationship with Blow. McQueen hanged himself a month before his 41st birthday, shortly after his mother died. A friend recalls that McQueen had once mused about ending a show with his own death; in a way he did precisely that. Combining archival footage, newly-shot interviews, and animated transitions, McQueen is an incisive portrait of a fascinating, troubled man. Recommended. (F. Swietek)
McQueen
Lionsgate, 111 min., R, DVD: $18.99, Blu-ray/DVD Combo: $23.99, Dec. 4 Volume 34, Issue 1
McQueen
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