The First Monday in May (2016)

Wonderfully offbeat film!

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

"Are clothes Art?" This film addresses this question. A documentary about organising the Metropolitan Museum of Art annual fashion exhibition and dinner for celebrities and rich people that occurs on the night before the exhibition opens. The exhibition is organised by the so called "Costume Insitute", the department at the museum that collects clothes. The department clearly feels that it is considered a second class citizen at this museum, as we hear many, many, many times from all of the main players in this documentary, that the Costume Institute is part of making a modern Museum that "does not have the traditional C19th view of art".However, what these people forget is that the Metropolitan Museum of Art is already very far from that. Indeed their stereotypical image of "what Art is", namely 'paintings and sculpture' was never true of many Americans museums, let alone this museum. Such American museums collected "non-Western" art from the beginning of the C20th. Thus, collecting "clothes as Art" not radical as Anna Wintour (editor of US Vogue) and the Costume Institute (lead by Bolton and Koda) suggest. However, what is confusing is the blurring the line between curatorial scholarship, and commercial sponsorship which the Costume Institute often proposes. (This is far from unique, as many museums in the Western world now suffer from this dilemma.) Thus, the exhibition organiser Andrew Bolton wears the clothes designed by his husband in at least half the film (this is not revealed, but the designs are very distinctive). The tension between scholarship and fashion is also featured in the film. A curator in the Asian Dept at the museum (who speaks Chinese to the Chinese designer of the exhibition) is always worried that the gloss of the high fashion will over shadow his galleries. Frankly, what did he really expect?! As viewers will see, for this exhibition the museum decided to put half the clothes in the Asian gallery space, and not in normal exhibition gallery space. I saw the exhibition and have to say this unique design ploy was very nice to see.So what is lacking is this documentary? Any serious discussion of the important intellectual issues. Any real attempt to edit idiosyncratic details from an objective account how to to mount a scholarly exhibition at the best museum in America. For example, why does Andre Leon Talley feature so strongly in this documentary? What do we have to see a photo of Bolton as 19 year old and vintage footage of London fashion in the 1980s and Bolton ruminating on the "bravery of new Romantics"? Nothing to do with China or the exhibition. Who comes off well? Karl Lagerfeld: "We make clothes, not art." Jean-Paul Gaultier, who knows the history of fashion. He walks around the opening and knows about cabinets' contents and artists - amazing!Weird facts: if you are a "special" museum trustee (Wintour) you can walk around the museum with cup of coffee whenever you want! For those who do not no visit museums, this is strictly forbidden for the rest of the world.The gala raises "$12,500,000" for a museum that requires $390,000,000 annual, OK every dolla 'elps, but all da hoopla fir … waah?Would I recommend this film? Not really, as we learn nothing new about fashion, fund raising, or mounting museums exhibitions.

What I like about this documentary is that it unabashedly shows Anna Wintour and her colleagues express their perceptions of what is fashion, what is art and what is important in their lives. We observe Wintour's meetings with trembling underlings pushing endless cups of coffee at her, waiting to hear her snide comments about who is important and who is not and what will be done that day according to what she wants. Its hard to take Anna and her withering looks and Bolton's ill-fitted Thom Browne suits seriously. However, every industry is like this -- you could have a documentary about the New York Yankees, and everyone there would be just as serious about winning the pennant as these people are about creating a blockbuster exhibition. Questions are raised from watching this film that make you think: Is fashion an art form? Does art have to be relevant to be taken seriously? Is it fine art or is it a commercial product?

A very good documentary that perhaps unwittingly reveals the shallowness of the participants. To me, Andrew Bolton is the only person who appears to have any substance at all. Watching Justin Bieber screeching in the hallway, people sniping at each other, sycophants gurgling over Rihanna's bizarre outfit which she caresses like some exotic animal and proudly announces that it took two years to make. What for? The dominant feeling of the entire movie was displacement and, for me, depression. I don't think one person laughed, took a walk, relaxed, or expressed an original thought in the whole movie. All this effort, all this tension, for what? To pay Rihanna twice the amount that any other celebrity has ever asked for? Why not just make a contribution to the Met? It was really an eye opener into excess, narcissism and a kind of professional, daily misery. I felt a little ill after watching it. The excesses of preening, posturing and vanity were all too much to bear. But the strangest thing is not one of these people except for Mr. Bolton, had anything remotely interesting to say.

Now, the only reason I saw this documentary, given the fact that I am not interested in fashion at all, is that I was forced to because of my job. Not that I am complaining, though. Even if I don't care about the movie's subject matter, I still think the behind-the-scenes look at the effort put in organizing such a huge event is quite fascinating.What also is quite fascinating is something that I have suspected for many years already, but this movie showed it do me clearly - way too many of the people in fashion industry are staggeringly uneducated when it comes to anything that is not fashion. I mean, yeah, you see, they know how to dress, how to talk, how to write in a way that makes them appear intelligent, they use "big" words like "soigne", they constantly talk about the aesthetic qualities of this or that, but underneath all posturing they are, well...A few spoilers here.Anna Wintour, probably the most famous fashion magazine editor in the world, literally, and I mean literally, can't differentiate a piece of furniture from a work of art. Seriously, she is a trustee at the biggest art museum in the world, she organizes huge events in the said museum every year, and yet... Well, see the movie and decide for yourselves. And there are worse examples. Although the theme of the exhibition the documentary is about is China, we hear people talking about Kabuki, Geisha, etc. One of the people organizing the exhibition literally suggests that Mao Zedong be depicted as some sort of a deity to Chinese people, equal to Buddha or something like that. To give credit where credit is due, I must say that the makers of the movie did not try to hide what the Chinese thought about the West interpreting their culture. Needless to say, they didn't like it very much. (On a side note, this movie was quite the eye opener for me when it came to things like cultural appropriation - because now I know why so many people frown upon it. Because when you take something from a culture you don't know and understand, and you twist it and pervert it without even realizing what you're doing... Well, some people will get offended - and rightfully so.) Luckily, the art director of the exhibition was Wong Kar-Wai - and he, at least in this movie, seemed to know what he was doing. I am not much of a fan of his, but he was there to tell the fashion men and women running amok to stop, to consider the possibility that what they're doing is not going to give them the results they are after... And, well, at the end, the exhibition, from what I saw, the exhibition turned out pretty beautiful - which is what is important. And don't get me wrong, I am not saying that Wong alone made it beautiful - many people worked hard on this, and I can only praise them for doing their job well enough.When it comes to the people shown in this movie... I am glad I don't know Anna Wintour. Seriously, she is horrible. May be her work for "Vogue" is exceptionally good, I don't know... I hope it is, because I can't think of any reason for anyone to tolerate such a rude, uneducated, pretentious snob. That being said, Andrew Bolton seems like a genuinely nice person, and someone who cares deeply about what he is doing. Wong Kar-Wai is cool - and, to me, at least, surprisingly rockstarish when it comes to attitude and confidence. The others... Well, they are colorful characters, to say the least.All in all, this is a nice documentary. Not the best, not the worst. I recommend it, even if you are not interested in fashion.