Portrait of a Lady on Fire
There is something thrilling about watching a movie you know little about, by a director you’ve never heard of before, starring two actresses you’ve never seen and in a foreign language. Every expectation tying you down is cut. With the familiar gone, you can begin to embark on a truly remarkable journey. My physical experience of the film left some things desired. There was an uncomfortable chair, the screen was smaller than usual, and a noisy film festival reception room provided murmuring background noise. However, none of these things could possibly detract from the spellbinding beauty of Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
The French film, directed by Céline Sciamma, is the story of a forbidden love affair between two women in the late 18th century. On an ocean-battered island off the coast of France, a painter is commissioned to paint a lady, Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), who refuses to sit for her portrait knowing that it will be sent off to a potential husband in Milan. Marrianne (Noémie Merlant), the young painter, poses as a walking companion and attempts to paint the portrait through fleeting glances at her subject. Their relationship, an incredible slow burn, is effortlessly portrayed by two of the best performances I’ve seen all year.
The film uses a very limited number of settings on the island to great effect. Everything is framed in gorgeous cinematography that makes the place come alive. The camera takes in every detail great and small to fill in the world. Small moments like a glance or a touch develop the relationship, as anything larger would be noticed by the mother of Héloïse, or even the friendly maid.
The atmosphere on the island is decidedly stifling, the characters held in place by the world around them. Yet, Héloïse and Marrianne find a way to make the fleeting romantic connection. The world is lonely and cold, but inside Marrianne’s painting studio there is room for warmth to be shared for a short time. The vague era, harsh landscape, and strong atmosphere give the film a mythic quality, allowing it to reach beyond the 18th century and deal with contemporary concerns.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire explores the burdens of society on women the burning passions that are stifled by expectations and conformity. What a sad lot in life the women in this film have; a servant forced to hide her pregnancy and go through traumatic procedures to abort the baby, an all too short and doomed love affair, and a mother forced to use her daughter’s marriage to improve her own lifestyle. However, the film has a muted humor and a quiet tenderness that endears it in the viewer’s mind, preventing everything from being too heartbreaking. It’s movies like these that tackle important social themes with modest gravitas, that need to be made more and viewed by a larger audience.