A documentary by Pierre Thoretton. In French and English with English subtitles. Rated G. Opens Friday, June 17, at the Fifth Avenue Cinemas

The most poignant moment in this exhaustive look at Yves Saint-Laurent's lifelong love affair with things comes during his farewell statement upon retirement, in 2002, six years before his death at 72. This comes right at the start of L'Amour Fou, so the viewer won't anticipate these being the most words we'll hear from the famously bespectacled designer for the rest of the film.

Pierre Thoretton's austere, frequently elegant documentary has plenty more to say about the Algerian-born couturier and the newly swinging London-Paris–New York ethos from which he emerged. There's more archival footage and some other talking heads, but it mostly hands the microphone to his lifelong partner in business and love. The film is structured around survivor Pierre Bergé's last big venture: the carving up of their mutual estate, in France and Morocco, and its eventual sale at a wildly successful Christie's auction at the Grand Palais.

The sad-eyed Bergé proves to be a voluble yet dispassionate tour guide to his beloved hero's utterly entwined life and work. Like many geniuses, Saint-Laurent was remarkably ineffectual at most things unrelated to his primary focus: making women look good. It's made clear here that a general inclination toward depression was exacerbated in the 1970s by a midlife embrace of drugs and alcohol (we're looking at you, Mick Jagger) and by the backbreaking effort it took to pull off hit shows twice a year for decades.

The big constant was his lust for well-made stuff, whether from the hands of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse or just a nicely turned vase. The end of the tale is sad, but there's something right about Saint-Laurent looking hard for soul not too far below worldly surfaces.

Watch the trailer for L'Amour Fou.