In the early 1960s a young British hairdresser named Vidal Sassoon revolutionized the industry with his break through haircut—the architecturally inspired, geometric “Five Point” that paved the way for London’s “Youthquake” movement that was just around the corner. Pairing up with mini-skirt designer Mary Quant, the two spearheaded the mod, swinging London of the ’60s so hilariously parodied in the Austin Powers movies. “You put the top on it,” Quant compliments the glowing Sassoon—fit, tan and affable at 83—as the two reminisce on camera 40 years later around the midpoint of the new profile documentary Vidal Sassoon: The Movie. Sassoon did “put the top on it” but he was just getting started. The sleek, geometric hair cuts (most famously for Mia Farrow in 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby) were followed by sleek, geometric salons and with merchandising in the ’70s, Sassoon became renowned world wide.
By the time we learn all this in Craig Teper’s debut feature, however, the amount of excessive praise heaped on Sassoon transforms the movie into hagiography. With a few snips here and there, it would fit right in as a career homage at one of those industry-only hair conventions that Sassoon himself helped to spawn. And after a candid recall of Sassoon’s difficult childhood and subsequent rise to fame the movie flattens like a bad perm and we are left to contemplate Sassoon the fitness expert as we watch him exercise and swim endless laps in his fabulous Beverly Hills pool.
But what really rankles is the aggressive heterosexuality of the movie. Sassoon shared a lot of similarities to the Warren Beatty/Shampoo type hairdresser—the irresistible womanizer (married four times), the finicky perfectionist whose every cut was seen as an act of sexual foreplay by his swooning female customers. Fine, fine. But nowhere is the fact of the profession as a bastion for male homosexuals even remotely addressed. How did Vidal handle it himself? Was he ever conflicted about his choice of profession? How did he become so comfortable as a straight man (albeit one with a lot of really femme qualities) in a gay-dominated industry? “Most were heterosexuals” is the sole hint we get from Sassoon that he’s aware of gay hairdressers (referring to his own staff at his original salon). Nor does anyone else in the picture talk about the prevalence of gay men (and women) at work in the industry and their overwhelming effect on the culture at large.
There’s also nothing about how AIDS decimated the industry throughout the ’80s and early ’90s, or what the Sassoon organization’s response to the pandemic was. We learn that Sassoon raised funds to build houses for Hurricane Katrina victims, but where’s the stuff about the scores of hairdressers who lost their lives during the first wave of the AIDS outbreak decades before Katrina? Where’s the support for all the gay workers who continue to carry on in his name?
Shockingly, Vidal Sassoon: The Movie doesn’t bother to address any of these subjects. Not only could Teper’s film have used a pair of editing shears and much less of the fawning, it could have also used a more honest approach about an industry so densely populated with Our People.
In Certified Copy, Juliette Binoche is a French antiques dealer living in Tuscany who ends up spending the day with a British author (opera singer William Shimell, in his first role) whose book on the importance of copies in art she loves. The two seem to have just met but during a stop for coffee they’re mistaken for a married couple and the two begin to act that way. By the end of the day, the nature of their true relationship is a large question mark.
The story raises questions about the aesthetic differences between the original and the copy and Iranian writer-director Abbas Kiarostami’s movie does so by casting us adrift from our usual expectations. Are these characters playing with marriage? Is this an improvisation, something they’ve done before? He’s a silver fox, confident and philosophical (Shimell is just right in the part) to her more emotionally explosive persona. (Binoche won Best Actress at Cannes for her multi-layered performance.)
The movie’s loaded with visual symbols of what the husband and wife have seemingly lost and it’s a sort of existential Two for the Road in which the couple reviews their marriage (or maybe pretends to in this case). “It’s not the work, it’s how you look at it” is the central point that Kiarostami seems to be making and whether it’s the original or a copy, who cares if it moves you? If it feels or looks right? Certified Copy is an interesting character exercise offering lots of after screening discussion possibilities for art movie lovers over strong black coffee and sweet liqueurs.
Film notes:
—Evangelion: 2:0 is the second in a four-part series of Japanese Anime films based on a hit anime television show (one of the most popular in Japanese television history). The first movie, which focuses on a group of freedom fighters utilizing Transformer-sized robots as they wage war, was a Gigantor-sized hit in its home country and for fans of this decidedly offbeat genre, this first sequel offers up more of the same. There are more gigantic robots; more eye-popping, color-drenched, sharply drawn 2-D visuals; and lots and lots of violent action. It opens March 18 at the Music Box, 3733 N. Southport; visit www.musicboxtheatre.com.
—The free, LGBT-themed, weekly film series Cinema Q returns Wed., March 23, with a screening of outtake interviews from Ky Dickens’ compelling 2009 documentary Fish Out of Water, which explores the relationship between homosexuality and the Bible and a rare theatrical screening of the 1994 lesbian romantic classic Go Fish. Dickens will be on hand to introduce the program, which begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington, in the Claudia Cassidy Theater. See www.queerfilmsociety.org.
—Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is gearing up for its second annual film festival, scheduled to take place in Hollywood later this month. To build anticipation, the network is once again hosting the “Road to Hollywood” series of free screenings across the country. The 1954 classic musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, starring Jane Powell and Howard Keel, is on tap for Chicago and will screen Thursday, March 24, at the Music Box, 3733 N. Southport. TCM host Robert Osborne will interview Powell onstage at the Music Box. Comp tickets are available—while they last—at www.tcm.com/2011/roadtohollywood/index.html.
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