52nd New York Film Festival: IRIS – Review by Kathleen Carroll
In the ever so posh world of high fashion and design, Iris Apfel has always been thought of as a true original. In her view basic black is for sissies unless you add a vibrantly colored jacket. She simply adores Moroccan jewelry but just one necklace would never do for her. She loves to pile on her amber necklaces and bold cuff bracelets. Her signature look, which includes a huge pair of black-rimmed eye glasses (the kind of glasses the late Carol Channing used to use as her favorite accessory) is truly unique which is why she is still at age 98 a fashion icon. Read on…
But this is the real revelation of Al Maysles’ wonderfully endearing portrait of a most unusual lady. Iris is one of the the funniest, most down to earth people you will ever meet in a film much less in real life. It is hardly any wonder that her husband, who celebrates his 100th birthday in the film, clearly adores this shopaholic. The couple never had children but their Palm Beach apartment is crammed with expensive toys – an elegant train set and a plus size model of the RCA dog (that Iris chides for being so overweight she had to search long and hard for a proper necklace for it).
In short, it is hard to resist this woman who appears to have been dressed by Picasso.
About Kathleen Carroll
Kathleen Carroll spent almost three decades working as a NY Daily News film critic. Her many credits include interviews with some of film’s biggest stars, such as Clint Eastwood, Federico Fellini, Natalie Wood, Peter Sellers, Woody Allen and Robert Redford, among them.
Carroll is a lover of film festivals and a presence at many of them, she regularly covered Cannes, co-producing and appearing in the documentary Diary of the Cannes Film Festival. Carroll has served on juries at the Berlin, Montreal and Santa Barbara film festivals, presented at both the Toronto and Sarasota film festivals, and along with Roger Ebert and Richard Corliss, was a Featured Programmer on the Floating Film Festival.
Kathleen Carrol is a member of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists Board of Advisors.