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...we really didn't need or did we...? In the past weekend flocks and flocks of Milanese gay fashion victims crammed into cinemas to see Tom Ford's A Single Man and were not disappointed by the fashion show normal people were instead deceived into. Not so trickily though.
Jon Kortajarena, a "versatile model in high fashion", unconvincingly plays the role of a Spanish hooker and most of the walk-ons, both men or women, seem to be runway models picked up for their great dumb looks. Nicholas Hoult, as seducing Kenny, attracts more attention for his infamous angora sweater than for his pretty good playing skills. Colin Firth, beautifully ageing, is just being used to sport one after the other the creations of Tom Ford Menswear brand: luxury clothing, accessories, fragrances and cosmetics. Indeed this is perfection in terms of advertising. All special effects are wisely used in the cinematography for maximum impact: warm and cold colours, light or dark lights, black and white, bright or dark, shiny or gloomy and so on.
What mostly disturbs though is the anachronistic way of presenting the issues of a third millenium couple dressed up in faked sixties' clothings. We are supposedly in 1963 and Stonewall is six years to come yet the couple depicted here has it all: a nice sofa to spend sunday afternoons both cuddled away into each other: reading books, listening to music, spoiling their pet dog. Heteronormativity at its best, paradoxically represented here by a gay couple. Groundbreaking. Bravo Tom Ford.
All we fought for... to end up conforming to the norm? No! thanks, we'd like to go beyond that. But most of all Tom Ford is an advertiser and advertisers want to sell and he does it so well, from one revolting cliché to the other, from the obivious to the pathetic... and never if ever a really disturbing image for le grand public. We walk out of the movie theater with a sense of dissatisfaction just like when we get to the final pages of a glossy fashion magazine and we can but throw it into a waste paper bin. We walk away from the movie theater knowing too well that when truly suffering from the loss of a loved one we won't give a damn about Windsor knots or our ties or shoe polish. Since when fashion and death go hand in hand? Or is this the new fad?
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1 comment:
I didn't dislike the movie so much, because that kind of aestheticism was what I expected from Tom Ford and I thought that, in spite of this formal coldness, Isherwood's story came through and was quite touching nevertheless. Your last remark is very true anyway! :)
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