Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

Portrait de La Jeune Fille en Feu

Country of Origin: France

Primary Audio Language: French

Director: Céline Sciamma

Film Length: 1h 59m

Synopsis: On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman.

Star Rating: ★★★★★

Review: A French historical drama taking place in the last 18century about the torrid love affair between two women, Héloïse (played by Adèle Haenel), an aristocrat, and Marianne (played by Noémie Merlant), the artist hired to paint her. It is a movie that depicts the emotional truth about longing and loving someone intently, on purpose, with the final message that, even if an encounter is brief, the love surrounding it can be lasting. Loving someone enriches your life and can change you forever, and that is never a tragedy.

I’ve been waiting for this movie to be released in the United States since I saw the first faint whisper of it after it’s release last year, so when it premiered on Hulu last month, it went directly to the top of my list for movies to review. I was so excited to watch it that I waited until I knew I had the time to properly enjoy it, and I’m not disappointed I did, it was everything I hoped it was going to be.

This movie was selected to compete for the Palme d-Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival and won the award for Best Screenplay and the Queer Palm, becoming the first film directed by a woman to do so. It was also nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2020 Golden Globe Awards, but lost to the previously reviewed and also deserving, Parasite.

[Minor Spoilers] The movie begins with Marianne teaching art in Paris. One of her students finds the source of the movie’s name, a painting of a woman dressed in fire, and the main story begins. Marianne is shown arriving at a small town in order to secretly paint a noblewoman’s portrait for the girl’s mother to show to a prospective husband can see to decide if he wants to marry her. The noblewoman is Héloïse, who does not want to be married, and has previously already chased away one painted hired for the job. Marianne at first acts as a sort of town companion, spending time with Héloïse in order to memorize her face and paint her later, but she is quickly found out, and it’s through that discovery the relationship between the two women begins to grow. The urgency of that relationship and it’s impending end weighs heavily on them, and Marianne is haunted by images of Héloïse at the end of hallways in a wedding dress, threatening the threat of domesticity in the other woman’s near future.

While the movie focuses on the passionate, and at time erotic, relationship between Marianne and Héloïse, it also takes time to intertwine the ideas of politics, representation, and the reality of the times the women live in, and the responsibilities they’re ultimately required to fill in their positions.

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Available On: Hulu

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