There’s a little hidden park, Le Jardin des Rosiers–Joseph-Migneret, in the heart of the Marais in Paris. The secluded spot takes its name from the principal of a local elementary school, who—after witnessing the roundup of 165 of his Jewish students in 1942—committed himself to the anti-Nazi resistance and scrambled to keep as many other young people from the gas chambers as he could. “N’oubliez pas!” commands a plaque in the park. “Do not forget!”
A leisurely 10-minute stroll away from Le Jardin des Rosiers–Joseph-Migneret, you will find La Perle, a hip brasserie with outdoor tables jammed up against one another in the classic Parisian manner. People go there to be seen, and one night in 2011 what onlookers saw was a man insulting the couple beside him, saying, among other choice phrases, “I love Hitler,” and “People like you would be dead—your mothers, your forefathers, would all be fucking gassed.” Someone recorded the rant with his phone. It’s an upsetting video: Upsetting because of what the man is saying—noxious, shocking things—and upsetting, too, because the man saying them is drunk beyond proper cognition, eyes dim, slurring his words. This man, of course, is John Galliano, creative director of Dior at the time and, by general consensus, one of the world’s great fashion designers, acclaimed for his theatrical magpie vision and the maximalist joie de vivre of his clothes. How did this person, so affirming of life’s splendid variety in his art, find himself in such an abject state, giving voice to such hate?
That is the question at the heart of High & Low: John Galliano, Kevin Macdonald’s new documentary. Produced in association with Condé Nast Entertainment and grounded in probing interviews with Galliano himself—as well as with confidants including Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss and former colleagues such as LVMH executive Sidney Toledano—the film seeks neither to absolve nor to condemn. Rather, it serves as a robust examination of a complex, contradictory character. “It’s a kind of detective story,” says Macdonald. “Me trying to figure this man out: the world he comes out of, the experiences that shaped him, what’s going on in his head. But if you watch the movie, you see that John’s trying to figure that out too. In some ways, he’s a mystery to himself.”
By his own admission, Macdonald “isn’t a fashion person.” British, and a bit younger than his subject, he was aware of Galliano as a figure in the zeitgeist, the prodigy–enfant terrible who shot from working-class obscurity in south London to the apex of fashion, becoming the first designer from the UK to take the reins at a Parisian couture house. One pleasure of making the film, Macdonald says, was acquainting himself with Galliano’s work—its synthesis of rich storytelling, far-flung references, and dazzling craft. High & Low gives Galliano his full measure as an artist. “But then there’s that video,” adds Macdonald, who previously directed the documentary One Day in September, about the murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. “And it’s repellent.”