Peter Lindbergh – Women’s Stories

‘Peter Lindbergh – Women’s Stories’ is a documentary of world famous fashion photographer Peter Lindberg, charting his life in the words of the women closest to him.

Lindbergh’s warm hearted methodology is developed slowly, whilst his real, private personality still watches us from the shadows…

Sickly son of a German soldier, evacuated to Bavaria as the Russians invaded Poland, Lindberg is a man who has taken definite steps away from his past.  Ebullient and jocular, Lindberg instead chose to be led by artistic passions than the shadows of his upbringing. Infusing his drift into fashion photography from a promising career as a painter, his open-hearted character is shown to be just as vital as his sensitivity for light.

Starting slowly with a historical emphasis on Lindbergh’s childhood and adolescence, this is a documentary that only finds its feet half-way through. Shown in a series of  hilarious behind-the-scenes exchanges with model Naomi Campbell, both model and photographer are honestly bared for the who they really are. Kick starting a sequence of scenes that best show the fun-loving side of its subject, it’s only in the last half of this movie that the feel-good bonhomie is surrendered to a further return to Peter wartime childhood.

Edited down time to a 2 hour duration, this is handsome yet long documentary is squarely aimed at Lindberg’s admirers. Bereft of any real, direct dialogue from the its evasive subject, Lindbergh’s warm hearted methodology is developed slowly whilst his real, private personality still watches us from the shadows.

[‘Peter Lindbergh – Women’s Stories’ premiere’d at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele during the 69th Berlinale / Berlin International Film Festival.]