McQueen

Paying visually resplendent testament to the crazed life and astonishing haute couture career of maverick fashion designer Lee Alexander McQueen, co-directors Ian Bonhote and Peter Ettedgui's startling documentary is a thoughtful, warts-and-all profile of its conflicted subject. McQueen's story is told in six stylish chapters ("Highland Rape" and "Plato's Atlantis" being indicative headings), each geared around a pivotal moment in his life coinciding with a new collection launch. Interviews with family, co-workers, lovers and friends (doomed socialite Isabella Blow makes a massive impact) capture the joys and sorrows of the gifted East Ender turned Givenchy guru and Bond Street visionary who tragically took his own life in 2010. With plenty of available archive footage from his earliest graduate days to his boundary-pushing catwalk shows (the 1999 robotic spray-painted dress finale still thrills), this dynamic portrait of tortured genius will move and engage even those without the slightest interest in the fashion world.