Super-Sub

When Svend was left companionless for Valentino: The Last Emperor on Sunday, I swooped in. That's just the kinda friend I am!

It was nice. It wasn't my favourite Film Fest thing, but it was watchable and made me think. I like that about Film Fest docos - they're a lucky-dip.

Afterwards, I was perusing my local video store (when will I start calling it the 'DVD shop'?) and was sorely disappointed by the doco section. I'd seen all the ones that looked any good to me. Need more variety! On the plus side (or possibly minus side) the guy serving me knew my name instantly (first and sur). I am still a regular. And this wasn't even my sci-fi buddy.

Anyhow. Valentino. The couture fashion designer guy - does dresses. It was really a doco about the changing nature of the fashion industry and how it's more about being commercially viable, and less about the art of it now. It amazed me that some company could take over the 'Valentino' label, and actually get rid of the eponymous designer. There was a key moment where they were planning a big 45th anniversary retrospective for Valentino, and his future hung in the balance with ownership changing. The young hot-shot the new owners had brought in to manage the company joked that, '.... more importantly, it's my 40th birthday that day!' Joking.... but not joking. The way they filmed him, he was always lurking around in the background, with his perfect hair and smarmyness. Good villain.

Valentino was visionary, stubborn, impractical. But he stuck to his guns. He said that he refused to compromise his vision of the label - he wasn't going to make accessory brands that were sold at airports, or do fragrances. He designed beautiful ball gowns. Full stop. His business and life partner supported him unwaveringly, the exact kind of person you'd want managing the business side of your life, if you wanted to just be the artist. Valentino is many things, but a sell-out is not one of them. Possibly a pragmatist is another.

And there were pretty dresses, and statuesque models (who would make even me look dwarfish - where were they when Liv Tyler was cast as an elf???). It was a nice view into the world of fashion and runway shows - you could tell that a lot of different people thought they were really the puppet masters and that everybody else was expendable. One poor model just stood around naked, silent and still, while Valentino and his seamstress pinned and folded fabric around her. She was nothing more than a canvas to them. Interesting life.

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In order of likingness - Film Fest list for 2009

1. It might Get Loud - delightful on every level (five stars)

2. Moon - a smart sci-fi (four and a half stars)

3. Adventureland - not that memorable, but sweet and on my wavelength (three and a half stars)

4. Valentino: The Last Emporer - interesting insight into a foreign world (three and a third stars)

5. We Live in Public - very relevant to (my) modern society, but harder to engage with (three stars - would have been less without director's talk)