Everyone keeps calling
Iris Apfel a “nonagenarian fashion icon,” because how many such people can
there even be? Well, at least a few, as the documentary Advanced Style
made clear last year. But Apfel deserved a film of her own, even if she didn’t
think so until meeting director Albert Maysles, who won her over with kindred
geriatric joie de vivre. That’s the spirit of Iris, a movie made mostly
just by hanging out—in this case, with a child of the Depression who grew up
understanding that personal style meant more and lasted longer than pretty
looks. Wisely alert to clothing as a cultural barometer, Apfel is a grand
combination artist, whose mix-and-match approach to dressing herself contains
multitudes. “There’s so much sameness,” she says about what she sees other
people wearing now. “Everything is homogenized. I hate it. Whatever.” The same
could also be said of fashion-themed documentaries these days, but even a
milder offering from the late and legendary Maysles—his last, as it turned
out—seems constitutionally incapable of being wholly inessential. Although
mostly a loose and unchallenging portrait, Iris is of value to the
documentary field if only for taking a stand, however casual, against
drabness.
IRIS
Directed by Albert Maysles
With Iris Apfel
The Screen
PG-13
80 min.
Santa Fe Reporter