Adèle Haenel and Noémie Merlant in ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’.
Written and Directed by: Céline Sciamma
Starring: Noémie Merlant, Adéle Haenel
A very simple question about a painting opens Céline Sciamma’s exquisitely intoxicating “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.”
As with the painting, the answers offer more detail than the artist Marianne (Noémie Merlant) is willing to share. At first.
In order to answer the question, we are whisked away to late eighteenth century Brittany, an island with a storied castle and an unintended, yet passionate romantic interlude awaits us. The island is the site of one of Marrianne’s earliest commissions, that of Héloise (Adéle Haenel), a betrothed woman of means, intellect, yet very little desire.
Marianne encounters resistance in getting Héloise to pose for the portrait. Marianne knows how to fend for herself; she is a very worldly individual. As such, Sciamma builds the intrigue through a game of “cat and mouse” as Marianne indulges in Héloise’s world.
That indulgence is carried through Claire Mathon’s exquisite cinematography, which has a painterly quality to it. Sun drenched walks along the rocky coastline give way to fire lit discussions: intense, purposeful and emotionally charged designed to draw us further into their affair. Sciamma is sure to infuse small details which help us to recall their relationship, bits that inform each character as uniquely as their story does.
The early indulgences lead to the first pose. The room is bright and airy, allowing for the idiosyncrasies of each character to show; neither is quick to reveal much about the other, yet both are keenly aware of the unspoken attraction. Sciamma’s attention to detail in these early scenes are magnetic, almost electric oozing through the screen.
Marianne’s assumptions and observations get the better of her though as the first painting is largely an intended failure. As observed by Valeria Golino’s Countess, Héloise’s mother,
The isolation of the island itself is a key to the outcome of the film; Sciamma does not hold back the inevitable, framed only by the fact that the events we witness are as a memory. That isolation is further cemented by a lack of characters, other than the live-in maid, Sophie (Luàna Bajrami).
Sciamma’s centerpiece isn’t so much the affair as it is the conflict that arises from the affair. Both Marianne and Héloise are passionately in love, yet they are aware that their affair cannot continue. Neither is willing to pull away.
Their hand is forced first through feelings of mistrust over the nature of the portrait, revealing an unsustainable affair. Second, and more important is a reflection of “Orpheus and Eurydice” in both the dialogue as an argument and then later at a fireside gathering full of women singing and dancing. This is the pivotal moment where vulnerability is revealed in a series of images that haunt Marianne. The love is still there as is the passion, but the reminders are such that they must move on.
When Marianne and Héloise finally do separate there is a tinge of regret that nothing further would come of the interlude. The memory of what was, the details Sciamma carefully built into their respective characters, is an eternal marker of a flame that will never die.
That love lives through “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” not just the movie itself, but the painting that was carefully created throughout the production. Sciamma’s talented eye and instincts won her the Queer Palm at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival as well as the Best Screenplay award.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words and while that might feel a cliché way to express my adoration of “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” it only scratches the surface of what Céline Sciamma’s film achieved.
4 out of 4 stars
