Rather the humanity of the women’s souls and the quietness of the way they take each other in (or miss the moment of the other’s glance) is what dominates. As fine an example as any to date for the merits of a female gaze telling a female story, the sensuality and physicality of Sciamma and Mathon’s compositions are devoid of the lustiness such subject matter might conjure from directors like Abdellatif Kechiche. It is the emotion of the scenes that create a melody for the audience. She and cinematographer Claire Mathon achieve an aching grace in all of their choices, which are allowed to breathe on the screen with almost no score at all. Sequences like this are designed in subtle and intimate shots by Sciamma that reveal a nuanced practicality in both women as opposed to melodrama one might anticipate from the material. ![]() Frequently touched with visions of her subject in the wedding dress her painting is driving her toward, Marianne is already living this moment as the memento it’s destined to become. Especially Marianne, ever the artist and poet, appears haunted by Héloïse even when they’re left alone for a week. But more impressive is the way that even at the height of their romance, there is something ghostly nostalgic about how they view one another. In Dorothée Guiraud’s costumes, they cut striking silhouettes on windswept cliffs above the ocean. Their portrayals are a mutual construct of naturalism that also distinguishes each characters’ very different ideas of individuality. French actors Merlant and Haenel blend performances that are both mired in loneliness and an intangible longing for a life as full as the sweeping landscapes around them. Ostensibly a period piece, Portrait of a Lady on Fire contains an immediacy as vivid as its title, surpassing any form of genre expectation. But what Marianne could not conceive is how quietly she and Héloïse develop romantic attachments that are never fully articulated but eminently understood. Héloïse is told that Marianne is meant to be a companion for long walks on a chilly shoreline-and while on these strolls, Marianne must in turn memorize every contour of Héloïse’s face and essence if she is to capture it in still life. Hence Marianne is given the uncomfortable job of not only being the weaver of Héloïse’s marital bonds, but also to do so in secret. As it turns out, Héloïse refuses to sit for anyone who would mimic her likeness on a canvas, as it’s meant to lure an Italian nobleman into proposing marriage. Marianne is the second person imported for the task, following an unfinished effort by a male contemporary. ![]() While her father is considered a great painter, Marianne is treated as a second choice talent by many due to her gender, including La Comtesse (Valeria Golino) who has retained Marianne to paint a portrait of her daughter Héloïse (Haenel). Set near the end of the 1700s, Marianne (Merlant) is a woman traveling to the French coast as if she is a mercenary for hire. This is cinema distilled to the minute, and characters whose visible inner lives can take on the immortalized quality of a mural’s subject. In the case of the stolen glances between Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel, it is the layered detail of their performances, and the way that they’re photographed, that makes it seem as if they’re not moving at all. The toast of Cannes and now the New York Film Festival, Portrait of a Lady on Fire asks the audience to study each hushed frame, and in the process reverses the suggestion that portraiture is at its most haunting when it looks like the eyes are moving. But just as this woman and her living subject debate the merit of aesthetic truth, and the fleeting quality of an individual’s essence, the film itself is a triumph in unconventional, honest moviemaking.Ĭonstructing a slow boil romance between two women whose shared words barely rise above an innocuous simmer, Sciamma creates a vision as detailed as the best of 18th century artistry. This should not be a surprise since the exquisitely realized film from writer-director Céline Sciamma follows a young painter in the 18th century who is assigned the task of crafting a portrait literally intended for the male gaze. There is much talk about the standards and shackles of convention in Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
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