A documentary by Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui. Rated 14A

The darkly compelling McQueen makes a fascinating bookend with Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist. Both profile working-class Londoners who muscled their way into fashion through chutzpah, raw talent, and a keen eye for the main chance. Still, these films and their subjects couldn’t be more different.

While Dame Vivienne Westwood, now 77, will always be associated with the DIY aesthetic of the punk era, her whole career has been largely tongue-in-cheek. Alexander McQueen, who barely made it past 40, took his rebelliousness very seriously, and this death-haunted documentary reflects that. A lumpish East Ender known by first name Lee to all who were close to him, he showed aptitude for art early on. It was only because his beloved mum saw a TV report on the slow death of Savile Row that he became a tailor’s apprentice.

According to one of the many loyal colleagues, childhood friends, and family members interviewed here, Lee could almost instantly cut cloth without patterns to guide him. He moved on to designing theatrical costumes—something barely touched upon but highly relevant to outré designs he later brought to Givenchy, Gucci, and, eventually, his own brand.

Writer-director Peter Ettedgui (who previously wrote material on Marlon Brando, Franz Schubert, and French film pioneer Jean Vigo) directs with low-budget genre producer Ian Bonhôte. Neither has direct connections to the fashion world, so there are no Anna Wintours or other usual suspects to guide us through the thickets of this thorny subject, who was traumatized by early-childhood abuse and put that pain into controversial shows like “Highland Rape” and his “McQueen’s Theatre of Cruelty”.

What they do have is spectacular footage of those shows. Some material is awfully on-the-nose. We learn that he was obsessed with composer Michael Nyman, so guess who does the soundtrack? In fact, the music is so insistent at times, it effectively drowns out the words of people who miss the man and are almost certainly telling you why.