If you want to make a lasting impression with a commercial posing as a short film, you could do a lot worse than hiring Gaspar Noé. The filmmaker welcomed us into the new year with a new short film for Saint Laurent titled “Summer of ’21” to showcase Anthony Vaccarello‘s upcoming collection, and it’s just what you’d expect from a Gaspar Noé short film.
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The short film is Noé’s second collaboration with Saint Laurent after his 50-minute short film “Lux Æterna” which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019 (and is very good and worth seeking out if you can). “Summer of ’21” stars Charlotte Rampling as an enigmatic and entrancing priestess, and features the SebastiAn remix of Donna Summer‘s “I Feel Love.”
The official synopsis describes the short film as “A world bathed by a red, hazy, velvety light, reminiscent of the glory years of Giallo or the interiors of Saint Laurent shops from another era. A familiar and timeless feeling. Dreaminess and tension, decadence and danger, like a false torpor. The unsettling strangeness of those girls gravitating around Charlotte Rampling, the mysterious and haunted priestess.”
The short feels not that dissimilar from Noé’s previous short film, and the use of colors and music feels reminiscent of the fantastic and strange “Climax” which has one of the best movie openings of the last few years.
In addition to Rampling, the short film stars models Anok Yai, Antonia Przedpelski, Assa Baradji, Aylah Mae Peterson, Clara Deshayes, Grace Hartzel, Kim Schell, Mica Arganaraz, Miriam Sanchez, Sora Choi, and Stefania Cristian.