‘PORTRAIT’ OF A TEMPORARY UTOPIA
Would-be lovers get a brief reprieve from French patriarchy
French auteur Céline Sciamma patiently weaves a powerful spell with her fourth feature film, the mesmerizing “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” Within the strictures of the repressive patriarchy of 18th-century France, she immerses the audience into a fleeting feminine utopia, a short but sweet glimpse of what life could be, wrapped up in a heady, heartfelt love story between an aristocratic lady (Adèle Haenel) and the woman hired to paint her engagement portrait (Noémie Merlant).
Marianne, dumped unceremoniously on the shore of a sprawling and empty estate, is tasked with painting a portrait of Héloïse without her knowing it. So the women walk on the beach, getting to know each other, Marianne carefully observing her subject and snatching sketches when she can. The film is methodically paced, but it never feels slow. Sciamma holds your attention in the palm of her hand, gently guiding you. The film unfolds like the painting of a portrait, starting with charcoal sketches and paint washes, daubs of color coming together into something like a likeness.
“Portrait of a Lady on Fire” is a stunning love story
made all the more powerful as seen through the double female gaze of Sciamma and her cinematographer Claire Mathon. The difference between this film and other notable recent cinematic depictions of love stories between women that were directed by men is stark. Sciamma focuses on the hearts and heads of the women, the heat between them visualized often with crackling fireplaces, candles, tobacco pipes and bonfires. In the moments just before they kiss, or after, the tension is strung as tight as a wire.
This is not just a film about love between women, but a rumination on the sacredness of a feminine space and the nature of art created by and for women. The characters are frank about their struggles: Héloïse, brought back from the convent to marry the man intended for her sister, who committed suicide, is angry at her lot; Marianne speaks to her frustration that she can’t paint men, and therefore can never create what would be considered great works.
“Portrait of a Lady on Fire” is richly layered and almost meditative in its pace, but the film stops to observe breathtaking moments of overwhelming beauty.
These moments and days are temporary, but Sciamma treats the time and space with attention, care and utmost artfulness, rendering it divine forever. Regret? No, they’ll remember, and you’ll have a hard time forgetting the power of the images Sciamma conjures in “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.”