Age During Beauty

In 'Iris', the late documentary maestro Albert Maysles hangs out with a fashion maven

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.


Letters to the Editor

Mail letters to PO Box 4910 Santa Fe, NM 87502 or email them to editor[at]sfreporter.com. Letters (no more than 200 words) should refer to specific articles in the Reporter. Letters will be edited for space and clarity.

We also welcome you to follow SFR on social media (on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) and comment there. You can also email specific staff members from our contact page.