The new bio-doc Iris (opening Friday) is quite an extraordinary film. First, its subject, 93-year-old Iris Apfel, blithely unaware of director Albert Maysles' camera, pursues her calling as Gotham City's oldest practicing fashion maven with gusto and an eye for a sharp look at the right price that leaves people half her age standing in the dust. Second, Iris is the final work in the 70-year career of the late Albert Maysles, a non-fiction filmmaker who captured a mind-boggling range of subjects, from 1955's Psychiatry in Russia to the 1966 doc short Meet Marlon Brando (the wily superstar at his slippery best), to Gimme Shelter (the perilous mix of the Rolling Stones and the Hells Angels at Altamont Speedway), to a 2009 short with one of my favorite titles, Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!
During our 80 minutes with Iris, the lady casually expounds on her philosophy for keeping things in perspective. Strolling through a Big Apple mall, she fingers a cheap bracelet, a special gift celebrating their 66 years together from her 100-year-old hubby, Carl.
"I get more kick out of this �" it probably cost four dollars �" than if my husband got me something at Harry Winston's. People interview me and they keep asking me about all these rules, and I say I don't have any rules, because I would only be breaking them, it's a waste of time. With me, it's not intellectual, it's all gut. I see something and just try it on, and I say, 'This will go with this.' It's the process I like."
Iris makes a pit-stop at Carl's 100th birthday party, I suspect a cinema first, where the guest of honor optimistically greets his "second century" from a wheelchair, with his "younger frau" Iris displaying a motherly side she never wasted on kids. The couple both affirm that they never wanted to be parents, Iris in particular recalling ancient memories of having to compete for her own career-obsessed mom's attention back in her own Depression-era childhood.
The film will probably work equally well for audience members whose eyes glaze over in terminal tedium at the mere mention of accessorizing �" a major hook for Iris' large queer fan-base �" as for style/fashion queens who will be lining up for the sequel. A special moment midway through finds Iris calling on her director �" whose March 15 death, at 88, leaves a big gap in the fraternity of elite non-fiction filmmakers �" to take an on-camera bow.
Iris mostly stays in the present tense, with only a few still-photo snapshots of a shy young girl who could probably never in her wildest fantasies have envisioned her end-of-life iconic status. Those doc-fans like me who linger through the final credit crawl will appreciate the appearance of Bill Cunningham's name, the veteran and elderly New York Times fashion photographer (subject of his own recent film portrait) being one of a handful of "professional New Yorkers" who can appreciate all that Iris Apfel has witnessed through her patented fishbowl-sized eyeglasses.