Writer & Director
Céline Sciamma
(GIRLHOOD, TOMBOY, WATER LILIES)

Starring
Noémie Merlant, Adèle Haenel, Luàna Bajrami and Valeria Golino

As PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE begins, a young painter named Marianne (Noémie Merlant) is tutoring an art class when she is questioned about one of her paintings in the room, named Portrait of a Lady on Fire. A distinct look of sadness washes over Marianne’s face as she reflects upon the subject of that painting and their recent past. In Brittany, France, 1760, Marianne, whose father is an artist, is commissioned to paint the portrait of a young woman who has just left the convent and is due to marry. This arrangement is anything but straightforward for Marianne, who must paint Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) in secret when alone at night after spending days as her companion. As Marianne’s painting nears completion, a mutual attraction and burning desire develops between the two women.

PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE is one of those films that stays with you immediately after viewing, then continues to grow on you more potently with each passing day. It is a slowly paced movie that impels its audience to soak in its subtleties, realise its pinpoint characterisation work throughout and to completely lose yourself in the impeccable performances of the two female leads. In fact, the sheer power of this love story is at first elicited and then amplified by many of its subtleties and intrinsic elements, which produce a handful of truly breathtaking and utterly memorable scenes. Even certain lines of dialogue written and spoken at times have this same effect.

The themes to be derived from the film’s narrative is something I feel is a little more open to individual interpretation. It is a love story that has the word forbidden painted all over it, but isn’t a theme on writer and director Céline Sciamma’s palette to explore at all really. Before and while the romance was developing, PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE had me more focused on identifying each character’s motivations and absorbing the boundaries to their varying degrees of freedom. Equality and vulnerability are a couple of others that I observed throughout and can mention without hinting towards a spoiler. The rest, I shall leave for you to discover in this exquisite and excellent film.

4 stars

Viewer Discretion
M (Mature themes and nudity)

Trailer
PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE

Moviedoc thanks Madman for the invite to the screening of this film.

PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE is released in cinemas throughout Australia from 26th of December, 2019.

Review by Leigh for Moviedoc
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