Unzipped
First-time director Douglas Keeve, apparently doing what he thinks a documentary director ought to do, uses cinema verite cliches as he teases us with behind-the-scenes intimacy. But he has no intention of mocking the industry where he’s long made his living as a still photographer, even though he does pull a few pranks that hint at the spuriousness of the fashion scene’s mystique and the dubious taste of those lusting for a peek inside.
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Other American fashion photographers who’ve turned to documentary filmmaking have brought strong design instincts to the screen. Bruce Weber’s Let’s Get Lost (1989), the story of jazz legend Chet Baker, had gorgeous, crisp black-and-white cinematography, and Arthur Elgort’s Colorado Cowboy: The Bruce Ford Story (1993) featured a gritty black-and-white texture perfectly suited to the dusty rodeo star. But Keeve’s compositions are offhand, and his imagery is often murky. Most of Unzipped is in black and white, but the occasional shifts into color sometimes seem whimsical, sometimes just clumsy attempts at heightened realism. His most annoying tactic is to pump up the black-and-white graininess to underline puportedly meaningful moments in Mizrahi’s quest for excellence.
But in Unzipped there’s no clue that Keeve and Mizrahi were once lovers–in fact Keeve is never on camera, though he can be heard posing a few questions. And Nina Santisi, who appears in several scenes, is identified only as Mizrahi’s vice president. Not until the end credits do we learn that she’s also an executive producer for the film. And only in the press notes can you find out that she used to be Mizrahi’s director of public relations and advertising, and that she’s credited with “originally conceiving the documentary.”
Altman’s models promenade nude down a Paris runway, wearing no fashions at all–his Big Statement. Keeve ends with a show where the models can be seen changing outfits behind a white scrim. As the house lights go up and down, black-and-white shots of backstage chaos and undergarments alternate with color shots of models strutting past a white wall wearing Mizrahi’s new line.
