Received several emails about this weird-ass short film Paris-Shanghai, written and directed by Karl Lagerfeld, and starring supermodels Freja Beha Erichsen, Heidi Mount and Edita, about a fantasy trip legendary couturier Coco Chanel made to Shanghai ("the trip Coco Chanel only made in her dreams"). "Fantasy" being the key word.
It's not a particularly good film by any means, and as good reader Frida points out, it employs "a lot of incredibly obvious, are-you-kidding-me-is-that-eyetape yellowface." It's pretty ridiculous. You've Freja as a Chinese courtesan and Baptiste as the Chinese emperor, with a couple of legitimate Asian faces sprinkled in for minor roles, including Tao Okamoto as a Chinese woman. Watch it here.
It's rather unwatchable -- I didn't make it very far. And yes, the whole thing is a very deliberate attempt at yellowface. Lagerfeld has explained that the film is "an homage to Europeans trying to look Chinese," like in the movie The Good Earth. How edgy. Well, then he's certainly succeeded -- these people look just as stupid as the actors in The Good Earth: Karl Lagerfeld Endorses "Yellow Face."
