Telling a love story in looks
How new queer drama Portrait of a Lady on fire created an intense love affair without words
PORTRAIT OF A Lady On Fire, director Céline Sciamma’s 18th century-set queer romance, which stunned critics at Cannes this year and won both the Queer Palm and Best Screenplay awards, is not a film of many words. Instead, it’s a forbidden love story between two women that lives and dies by stolen glances.
“The women’s characters in the film are oppressed by the borders that society closes in on them,” says Noémie Merlant, who plays Marianne. “But with our eyes, with the looks that we have in secret, there is life, and desire.”
Set on a desolate island in Brittany, the film charts the lesbian affair between Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), a wealthy young woman headed into an arranged marriage, and Marianne, an artist hired to paint her portrait in secret while posing as her maid. “Because this is a film told through the gaze of others, Héloïse travels from being an object to becoming a subject,” says Haenel, before citing a key influence on her performance.
“Carol is one movie that changed my life,” she says of Todd Haynes’ acclaimed 2015 queer drama. “Cate Blanchett is very good at changing the quality of her acting throughout the film; at the beginning, with the big fur coat, she’s wearing a fantasy, but then it all crumbles.”
Sciamma (who also directed Girlhood, and penned the Oscar-nominated animation My Life As A Courgette) has a particular process for bringing her actors into her world, which, the actors say, is markedly different from other directors. “Céline really takes the time to get this really deep understanding of what you’re doing,” Merlant explains. “She’s sharing a vision with you; it’s not forced upon you.”
In practical terms, this meant the women would interpret their character’s physical mannerisms for themselves. “We tried to create this new emotion for the audience,” says Haenel. “I used my imagination and also what I know from Japanese theatre. It’s all about the figure.
It’s all in the face. Everything is very restrained and yet very hectic — there’s a cut between your emotions and your intellect.” What seems like a technical acting exercise, then, transforms into the most authentic kind of love story.