A SLOW BURN
Portrait of a Lady on Fire leans into quietness to depict the arc of love
There is a remarkable quietness to Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire. The film has no musical score, instead capturing every sigh, every fire crackle, every brush of fabric that sounds throughout the film’s 18th-century French mansion.
The story follows a young artist, Marianne (Noémie Merlant), tasked with painting a portrait of a reluctant bride-to-be, Héloïse (Adèle Haenel). The piece will be sent to a male suitor in Milan, against which Héloïse has put up a fight — so her mother (Valeria Golino) enlists an artist to secretly paint Héloïse by posing as a walking companion in the daytime and brushing her image onto canvas at night. The film (now playing in select cities across Canada) explores the female gaze both figuratively and literally as the glances Marianne steals become more longing.
Without a score, Portrait of a Lady on Fire rarely relies on musical cues to suggest how viewers should feel about what is unfolding on screen — making the pair of grand musical performances Sciamma does choose to include in the film (one original composition and another by Vivaldi) all the more powerful. The scenes capture fiery emotions that contrast with the remainder of the sparse soundscape, accentuating turning points in Héloïse and Marianne’s relationship.
The crescendoing notes relay to the audience what the women’s words do not.
The first instance arrives when Héloïse and Marianne accompany the housemaid Sophie (Luàna Bajrami), one of few supporting characters, to a gathering of women around a bonfire. Without explanation, the women begin to sing La Jeune Fille en Feu, their voices harmonizing and swelling in unison. As Héloïse and Marianne lock eyes from several feet away, the performance pivots to a spellbinding combination of chanting and clapping. The hem of Héloïse’s gown catches on fire, but she remains too mesmerized by Marianne’s gaze to address the perilous situation until several beats later.
Sciamma weaves overt metaphors throughout her film, the song’s pivot mirroring that of the story. Something shifts between the two women when the others repeat the lyrics, “Non possum fugere,” or “I cannot flee.” Héloïse and Marianne’s is not a tortured romance, and they reject the restraint previously reflected by the empty soundscape. Strengthened by the passion of the bonfire performance, they realize the inevitability of their falling in love.
Composed by electronic musician Para One, La Jeune Fille en Feu introduces a startling modernity that contrasts with the other major musical cue in the film: the third movement of Summer, from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Marianne plays a portion for Héloïse on the harpsichord when, as their relationship blossoms, the latter admits she has never heard an orchestra.
The brittle yet charming sounds echo through the quiet mansion as Marianne relates the music to nature coming alive.
Sciamma chose Four Seasons because of its familiar sound: “I wanted a hit, so that the audience connects and will listen to it again — it’s Vivaldi, but it’s also the memory of Vivaldi,” she said in an interview last year.
The piece returns in the final scene, following many others documenting the brief, passionate romance Héloïse and Marianne allow themselves to fall into. Years have passed, and Héloïse, now married with a child, unknowingly sits alone across a concert hall from Marianne. Héloïse gazes at the orchestra as a lengthy tracking shot, seemingly from Marianne’s perspective, pulls in on her former subject. Vivaldi blares as Héloïse’s mind wanders back to when she first heard the piece.
The scene is bound to earn comparisons to Timothée Chalamet’s sorrowful stare into a fireplace at the end of Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me by Your Name, as he silently accepts the fate to which he is resigned. But the fire of Sciamma’s film is now a distant recollection, one that casts Héloïse into a tumult of emotion expressed by the quick, roaring strings.
Though Summer projects anguish, it is also comforting to Héloïse, summoning nostalgia for the languid summer days spent with Marianne.
The Washington Post