Galliano

There’s an argument to be made that we have heard everything we ever need to hear from John Galliano, the subject of this knotty, complex documentary portrait. That after the formerly celebrated and adored British fashion designer was filmed, booze-sodden, bitter and spewing an antisemitic tirade at strangers from his preferred corner seat in La Perle, his local bar in Paris, his legacy should have been buried and the attention of the fashion world should have moved on to other, less radioactively compromised figures.…

The strange, and strangely unedifying, story of fashion designer John Galliano is retold by film-maker Kevin Macdonald, who covers the ground and states the facts in an impeccably professional way. Yet this film feels constrained by the obvious need to be diplomatic with Galliano and his A-list supporters to whom Macdonald has intimate access.Galliano is the brilliant Gibraltarian-British designer whose flamboyant designs electrified the world of couture in the 90s; he was creative director of both Givenchy and Dior in…