A stunning rendition of the eternal longing all love engenders, regardless of the sex.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Grade: A
Director: Celine Sciamma (Tomboy)
Screenplay: Sciamma
Cast: Noemie Merlant (Paper Flags), Adele Haenel (The Unknown Girl)
Rating: R
Runtime: 2h 2m
By: John DeSando
“When you asked if I had known love. I could tell the answer was yes. And that it was now." Marianne (Noemie Merlant)
No art form has struggled more to get the depiction of love just right than film. Portrait of a Lady on Fire gets it almost perfect, and it’s Sapphic! All you modest types don’t need to worry—writer director Celine Siamma stresses the longing and the dance of love much more than its physicality. Two young women spend most of this beautiful romance just getting to the first dance, and the journey is as exciting and anguishing as it was for us in those early years of exploring.
Late 18th century Marianne has been hired to paint young Heloise (Adele Haenel) for her wedding portrait. Not that you can’t guess what is going to happen while the first portrait is being painted, but the film languishes long and deep on the glances between these two potential lovers. Those gazes encapsulate the truth of their affections and the high-mindedness of their intentions.
Perhaps the business of painting lends the ethereal quality to their love, which is born of the imagination and fleetingly put on canvas forever. It’s just that the slow, loving pace of the camera and the conceit lend a mystery (Will they connect?) and a sweetness (how transforming love can be from a scowl to a smile).
The cinematography, especially of the rugged cliffs and the sea, is well-aligned with the power and danger of their tender love. Not even mother’s (Valeira Golino) affection for her remote daughter pales next to the burgeoning passion of the leads.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire fiercely speaks to the fire, conventional or not, that can burn in all of us. Leave it to film to bring out the love in our hearts.
“To love pure and chaste from afar.” Man of La Mancha
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JohnDeSando62@gmail.com.
