ARTE and Les Rencontres d’Arles offer a screening of William Klein’s film Who are you, Polly Maggoo?
A biting satire of the world of fashion and the media in the 1960s, the film follows Polly, an American model in Paris who has become an icon of a superficial, hyper-mediatized world. Through a mock TV report and a succession of stylized sequences, William Klein depicts an environment obsessed with image, appearance and celebrity.
Between extravagant fashion shows, absurd interviews and fantasies projected onto the heroine, Polly appears more like a media construct than a real person. The film alternates between reality and staging, blurring the boundaries between documentary and fiction.
With its ironic tone and pop aesthetic, the film criticizes modern myth-making and the growing influence of the media on our perception of reality, while capturing the spirit of an age fascinated by modernity and spectacle.
