“Portrait of a Lady on Fire”, which received the Best Screenplay Award at Cannes, is an absorbing depiction of two women in an earlier era that has been masterfully filmed by director/writer Celine Sciamma.
At the end of the eighteenth century, Marianne, an artist (Noemie Merlant) arrives on an isolated island in Brittany to paint a portrait of Heloise (Adele Haenel) for a prospective husband. Heloise has exhausted a previous painter’s attempts at a portrait. Marianne is to pretend to be a companion to Heloise, observe her, and paint the portrait in secret.
Adele Haenel and Noemie Merlant in “Portrait of a Lady on Fire”
When Heloise’s mother, the Countess (Valeria Golino) leaves the island, Heloise and Marianne remain alone in the island household with the maid.
Celine Sciamma‘s direction is exceptional, both in visually conveying the isolation of the rocky island as well as the changing relationship between painter and subject.
Adele Haenel and Noemie Merlant give superlative and subtle performances as their characters’ glances at each other, as they walk outdoors, build into a deepening attraction. The film becomes an enthralling view of the development of an intense relationship that the era would force to become hidden. Heloise and Marianne also help the maid Sophie (Luana Bajrami) deal with her own secret.
Adele Haenel and Noemie Merlant in “Portrait of a Lady on Fire”
The film concludes with an unforgettable close-up of Haenel containing a deep range of emotions.
Director Celine Sciamma and Adele Haenel discussed their film at the Telluride Film Festival. Sciamma said that in France, 25% of the directors are female. She wanted a change from having female characters marginal to a film. She described her “Portrait” as “about love and creation” and looking with a “gaze obsessed”.
Celine Sciamma at the Telluride Film Festival (c) Ed Scheid
Sciamma wanted her two main female characters the be “centered” on “new experiences” and “put in active as subjects”. She described her film as a “love story with equality”.
Haenel said that between Marianne and Heloise there is a “cross between subject and object”, and the film is created around this question. She added that each of the two women begins with a “cold and retrained face as mask” that evolves to a “more emotional” gaze.
Adele Haenel at the Telluride Film Festival (c) Ed Scheid
Sciamma laughed while saying that “through art history, the female point of view”, in a “quick read, doesn’t exist”. She spoke of wanting her “Portrait” to view the “heart and mind of a woman of that century (eighteenth)” and to be a film that “pushed boundaries”.
Cinema Sight 