High and Low: John Galliano

Kevin Macdonald’s compelling documentary traces John Galliano’s working and private life through the decades, candidly investigating his struggles with addiction and the industry pressure he faced along the way, questioning whether his outbursts were explainable, rationalisable, or even forgivable.

The first we see of the influential John Galliano is him inebriated back in 2011. Consumed by arrogance and liquor, Galliano verbally attacks strangers at Café La Perle in Paris. Galliano assumes strangers in the café are Jewish, telling them that their forefathers would have been exterminated under Nazi rule before continuing to express admiration for the Holocaust and Hitler. This was one of three separate incidents at the Café La Perle where Galliano attacked patrons with his hate speech.

However, today, over ten years later, the sober and remorseful John Galliano can recall only one incident until his assistant prompts him about another; the third seems entirely amiss to his memory. Today’s Galliano is clean and poised, his hair in a man bun as though he turned a new leaf as a yogi. Yet, it’s clear that his knowledge of theatre and performance still lingers. The designer, who revelled in assembling catwalks with narratives, still has an aura of direction, as though each delivery to the camera is its performance, like his work on the runway. “I’ll tell you everything”, he remarks, addressing us directly through the lens. He knows we want to know everything, but he’s a showman with a performance to do.

Director Kevin Macdonald chronologically pieces the legacy of John Galliano through archive footage of the designer preparing models for the runway or through historic interviews for broadcast, with supplementary audio interviews to support. The interviews include actresses Charlize Theron and Penélope Cruz, models Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell and former CEO of Dior, Sidney Toledano, who together piece an idea of the toxic environment of the industry, echoed in the deaths of long-term collaborator Steven Robinson and fellow designer Alexander McQueen.

Whilst the models do attempt to preserve Galliano’s career, with Naomi Campbell vehemently denying Galliano as racist, Toledano, with the air of a mafioso, ominously alludes to unresolved tensions between the House and the designer that suggests a complexity to the politics of the documentary is unable to explore fully.

Macdonald’s meticulous weaving of the events encourages audiences to lean into Galliano as a designer, inviting those unfamiliar with fashion into its story. But, most impressive is how Macdonald orchestrates the interviews that give audiences an idea of the story he’s trying to tell. Choosing to frame all the subjects to either the left or right of the frame, Macdonald subconsciously shows that the contributors are supporting actors, whilst Galliano is the lead act, the only one positioned in the frame’s centre.

Macdonald takes this leading character idea further, forcing it to fit a Napoleonic storyline, intercutting between Galliano’s interview and archive footage of Abel Gance’s Napoleon (1927) after Galliano expresses his love for the film. However, Macdonald reads into this an obsession, hammering the point cutting between John Galliano and Albert Dieudonné dressed in flamboyant garments, each rallying cries of leadership to the French to follow their leadership blindly. Thankfully, as Macdonald continues pedalling the idea, Galliano pushes back, and it’s through this that audiences get a sobering truth, a Galliano unfiltered, which explains perhaps the root cause of the outbursts.

However, throughout the interview, Galliano presents as deeply remorseful. Even though Macdonald’s research gains access to hearing from the victims, it offers counter perspectives claiming the designer is yet to apologise. It presents a narrative of Galliano that many outside the industry will be left to side with. As the designer continues working in fashion, now for Maison Margiela, Macdonald alludes to the conversation of cancel culture and whether a disgraced artist can, or should, be allowed to continue.

A considered and well-crafted documentary, High and Low: John Galliano, teeters into documentary storytelling associated with terrestrial broadcast; still, its understanding of archive compilation and allowing the interviewees moments of reflective beats invites audiences to question whether Galliano is antisemitic or whether, as Galliano hopes, his redemption attempts better represent his character.

High and Low: John Galliano is in UK cinemas from 8 March 2024.