The big problem with Lagerfeld Confidential is that it is exactly that. Confidential.

You never really get to know - or even glimpse - the real persona behind the Hamburg-born fashion-meister who turned around an ailing Chanel and insists on wearing crocodile skin boots. At a grizzled 69.

Then again, he's an enigma who likes it that way. Is the sort of celebrity who wears his shades both indoors and out ever likely to bare his soul to the camera?

Film-maker Rodolphe Marconi enjoyed ten months of access to the designer, following him from his Parisian mansion to his Biarritz hideaway, from a New York party to a Monaco fashion show.

Yet, we never really learn anything of note - Lagerfeld had a loving if emotionally combatative relationship with his mum and had his first gay experience when he was little more than a child.

He has an unquenchable hunger for the celebrity circuit - a world where he's surrounded by haute coutured sycophants and gazelle-like beauties who can negotiate a catwalk in eight-inch heels but couldn't spell Middlesbrough.

"Your jacket - it's so visionary," squeals one obsequious fashion harpie.

However, we also learn that Karl likes his own company and the chance to recharge his batteries. He likes the smell of building sites.

No, nothing of any great interest here. Although we do get to see the great man clambering in and out of a rich assortment of executive jets, stretch limos and SUVs.

The truth remains that Lagerfeld's expertly cultured air of mystique is one of his unique selling points and he's unlikely to give up any family secrets to anyone with the clunking interview technique of Marconi.

In fact, the best scenes are when a wryly amused Lagerfeld teases his supposed interrogator as he pussy-foots around yet another dodgy question.

Tim Evans