Presented at the last Milan Fashion Week, then released on social media, the short film The Tiger by Spike Jonze and Halina Reijn, With its impressive cast, it reinterprets the Gucci legend in a biting and offbeat tone.
To unveil the first collection by its new creative director, Demna Gvasalia, Gucci released a series of photographs entitled La Famiglia , featuring 38 characters sketched like members of a card game. A lookbook showcasing some of the "family" members serves as a teaser before the film's release. The film is directed by two heavyweights, two filmmakers who are undeniably cool.
On the one hand, Spike Jonze and his uniquely moving and strange universe, from Her to Being John Malkovich , need no introduction . Also the director of numerous commercials (we particularly remember the Kenzo World ad with Margaret Qualley) and more than a dozen music videos, Jonze has a unique ability to give his characters style through bizarre poses and by creating a sense of incongruity.
On the one hand, Halina Reijn, a Dutch actress turned filmmaker, is one of the most prominent directors of the moment: Bodies Bodies Bodies , a delirious murder mystery distributed by A24, with a cast featuring rising stars of American cinema, was a minor sensation. Since then, the filmmaker has turned up the heat between Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson – and among many viewers – with Babygirl.
A dynamic duo, then, for an astonishing exercise, halfway between advertising and a feature film.
A family matter
The story of this roughly 30-minute film is a far cry from traditional commercials. In a world where major brands also own American states, Barbara Gucci (Demi Moore, who seems to have stepped straight out of The Substance ) is the head of Gucci International and chairman of the state of California. She is also the heiress to an empire bequeathed to her by her father, which she hopes to live up to, and the head of a pathetic family made up of idlers, treacherous profiteers, and lovable simpletons (Edward Norton, Elliot Page, Keke Palmer, Alia Shawkat, Julianne Nicholson, and Kendall Jenner all have a blast portraying this deliberately grotesque extended family ). The arrival of a journalist as serious as he is prestigious (Ed Harris) disrupts the already precarious harmony of this stifling and somewhat degenerate family.
Given Demna Gvasalia's background at Balenciaga, it's easy to understand his deliberately provocative desire to offer a satire of the lives of the wealthy as an advertisement for a luxury brand. One immediately thinks of The White Lotus (the music, composed by Cristobal Tapia de Veer, as in Mike White's series, certainly contributes to this). But one also thinks of House of Gucci , Ridley Scott's film about the assassination of Maurizio Gucci. The story was there, very real, and behind the trappings of a Hollywood fiction that played with good taste, this biopic also recounted the end of a family business and the sale of the brand to a major international group.
Today, Gucci belongs to Kering, and no family member holds a key position within the company. Gucci is no longer a family name; it's a brand, like Balenciaga or Kenzo. Thus, through this fictional detour, Demna Gvasalia seeks to resurrect the Italian company's family tradition, while also reminding us—and this is where the incisive talent of this designer lies—just how toxic family can be. The history of the Gucci dynasty offers a striking example. Under the guise of an entertaining short film, and while showcasing all the iconic looks from his new collection, Gvasalia seems to remind us that he is well aware of the complex legacy of the house he has just joined.
The Tiger by Spike Jonze and Halina Reijn, for Gucci
