Iris

From his short-form por­traits of Mar­lon Bran­do and Muham­mad Ali, to his fea­ture-length stud­ies of the Rolling Stones, the extend­ed Kennedy-Onas­sis clan and door-to-door bible hawk­ers, eccen­tric­i­ty and per­for­mance have been con­stant bed-fel­lows in the work of the late Albert Maysles. His penul­ti­mate film – a ten­der, pri­ma­ry-coloured por­trait of the fash­ion world’s favourite nona­ge­nar­i­an icon­o­clast – is cut from the same cloth, a fit­ting swan­song for one of cinema’s fore­most cel­e­bra­tors of curve-swerv­ing individualism.

“I don’t have rules because I’d always be break­ing them,” could be a line pulled from any Maysles doc­u­men­tary. It’s spo­ken here by Iris Apfel, one the world’s fore­most col­lec­tors of cou­ture jew­ellery and fash­ion. With her shock of white hair, over-sized glass­es and vivid slash of the pink­est lip­stick, this 93-year-old force of nature glides through the inter­sec­tions of New York’s fash­ion, design and art scenes like a one-woman mobile instal­la­tion. Maysles’ decep­tive­ly straight­for­ward tech­nique lay­ers moments like his pro­tag­o­nist lay­ers acces­sories. ​“I like to impro­vise,” says Iris, and Maysles echoes the jazz-inspired approach of his sub­ject, build­ing themes and return­ing to them with lit­tle regard for osten­ta­tious dis­plays of technique.

Iris explic­it­ly acknowl­edges an ear­ly influ­ence on her life­long need to accu­mu­late from the own­er of a depart­ment store who once told her, ​“You’ll nev­er be pret­ty, but it doesn’t mat­ter, you have style.” Maysles finds sub­tle grace notes that fur­ther serve to psy­chol­o­gise her obses­sion, yet there’s lit­tle sense of an unmask­ing, as her art and self prove so con­ta­gious­ly fused to the joy she finds in ​‘play’. What emerges as the back­bone to Iris’ sto­ry and Maysles’ film is the sig­nif­i­cant sup­port­ing char­ac­ter found in her sharp, cen­tu­ry-cel­e­brat­ing hus­band Carl. The film­mak­er may be cap­tur­ing a lifetime’s vir­tu­osic solo, but under­neath it all is a 70-year-long love sto­ry, keep­ing the beat.