F/F Friday: Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Oct. 18th, 2019 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerSometimes you see a movie and you feel, not only that it was a good movie, but that this is the sort of thing that you want to make: it reverberates a chord in your heart.
This is how I felt about Celine Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Marianne, a young painter in 18th-century France, is hired to come to a remote chateau by the coast to paint a wedding portrait of Heloise. The catch? Heloise doesn’t want to get married, and has already worn out one painter by refusing to pose for him. Marianne, therefore, is to pose as a lady companion whom Heloise’s mother has hired to accompany on her walks, and observe Heloise so she can paint her on the sly.
There’s a gothic cast to the story: Marianne’s night arrival at the crumbling chateau, dark interiors, flickering candlelight, girls in fluttering white chemises - a vision of Heloise, unsmiling, in her shimmering white wedding dress. However, there is no air of menace here: the atmosphere instead is melancholy, and grows lighter as Marianne and Heloise begin to form a delicate friendship - which slowly deepens into love once Marianne confesses her true errand, and Heloise agrees to pose for her.
The movie moves slowly, but it is never dull. I particularly enjoyed all the scenes of the good times that they share: playing cards with the maid Sophie in the kitchen, or discussing the story of Orpheus and Eurydice after Marianne reads it aloud. Sophie is of the opinion that Orpheus behaved foolishly: he was told not to look back, and he did, what a putz. (Sophie gets more characterization than servant characters generally do, which I also enjoyed.) But Marianne argues that Orpheus made the decision of an artist rather than a lover - the decision to remember.
This seems a little hard on Eurydice, who surely ought to have a choice in the matter. But then Heloise (not exactly a parallel of Eurydice, but certainly an echo) does get a choice, when the time comes, which serves as a criticism of Orpheus in itself.
Given the premise of the story - painter hired to paint wedding portrait! - it would be very difficult for Marianne and Heloise to end up together, and indeed they don’t. This is sad, but not a tragedy. Marianne continues her career as a painter, and we see her at the salon, where she has entered (under her father’s name) a painting of Orpheus and Eurydice - and where she sees a painting of Heloise, with a child at her side, holding a book on her lap with a finger marking the page: page 28, the page on which Marianne sketched her portrait for Heloise to remember her by.
This is how I felt about Celine Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Marianne, a young painter in 18th-century France, is hired to come to a remote chateau by the coast to paint a wedding portrait of Heloise. The catch? Heloise doesn’t want to get married, and has already worn out one painter by refusing to pose for him. Marianne, therefore, is to pose as a lady companion whom Heloise’s mother has hired to accompany on her walks, and observe Heloise so she can paint her on the sly.
There’s a gothic cast to the story: Marianne’s night arrival at the crumbling chateau, dark interiors, flickering candlelight, girls in fluttering white chemises - a vision of Heloise, unsmiling, in her shimmering white wedding dress. However, there is no air of menace here: the atmosphere instead is melancholy, and grows lighter as Marianne and Heloise begin to form a delicate friendship - which slowly deepens into love once Marianne confesses her true errand, and Heloise agrees to pose for her.
The movie moves slowly, but it is never dull. I particularly enjoyed all the scenes of the good times that they share: playing cards with the maid Sophie in the kitchen, or discussing the story of Orpheus and Eurydice after Marianne reads it aloud. Sophie is of the opinion that Orpheus behaved foolishly: he was told not to look back, and he did, what a putz. (Sophie gets more characterization than servant characters generally do, which I also enjoyed.) But Marianne argues that Orpheus made the decision of an artist rather than a lover - the decision to remember.
This seems a little hard on Eurydice, who surely ought to have a choice in the matter. But then Heloise (not exactly a parallel of Eurydice, but certainly an echo) does get a choice, when the time comes, which serves as a criticism of Orpheus in itself.
Given the premise of the story - painter hired to paint wedding portrait! - it would be very difficult for Marianne and Heloise to end up together, and indeed they don’t. This is sad, but not a tragedy. Marianne continues her career as a painter, and we see her at the salon, where she has entered (under her father’s name) a painting of Orpheus and Eurydice - and where she sees a painting of Heloise, with a child at her side, holding a book on her lap with a finger marking the page: page 28, the page on which Marianne sketched her portrait for Heloise to remember her by.
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Date: 2019-10-18 05:41 pm (UTC)Dang, the sun is in my eyes right now, or dust, or ...
That sounds lovely.
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Date: 2019-10-19 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-18 08:15 pm (UTC)I really, really want to see this movie! I'm glad you liked it!!
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Date: 2019-10-19 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-19 04:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-19 12:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-19 02:53 pm (UTC)Also, the Orpheus and Eurydice story is really having a moment, isn't it? Both Hadestown and Moulin Rogue are on Broadway right now and are both retellings of the same story.
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Date: 2019-10-19 03:08 pm (UTC)And yes! I was thinking about that as I drove home from the movie - only I think that I had yet another recent story that alludes to Orpheus and Eurydice in mind, and now I can't remember what it was. So it goes.
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Date: 2019-10-19 09:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-19 09:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-21 01:02 pm (UTC)PAGE 28, SLAY ME, that part was so good ugh. I loved how much Sophie got to do, and the little scenes like Marianne painting the abortion moment, or all the village women singing together, that was so eerie - but like this idea of the women's world, outside the public eye and usually undocumented, was so interestingly explored.
I want to request this for Yuletide next year, Heloise can hire a drawing master for her child and it can be Marianne.
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Date: 2019-12-21 02:05 pm (UTC)I LOVE IT, A++ futurefic idea. It's still before the Revolution, I'm assuming? Marianne has become a successful painter (like Elisabeth Vigee Lebrun) and normally she wouldn't have time to tutor a child, but then she sees it's HELOISE who has written to her... well. (And then Heloise's husband loses his head in the Revolution and Heloise and Marianne flee France together and spend the rest of their lives in conjugal bliss in an English cottage by the sea?)
And YES, I loved the way the movie set up this idea of a women's world that is mostly outside of the public eye - the sense of transgression when Marianne DOES document it, by sketching the abortion (and even then you know it's a sketch that will never be exhibited: the documentation will remain private). In general I loved Sophie's storyline: servants are often basically ciphers in stories like these, so it's good to see her get, you know, actual characterization.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-25 07:49 am (UTC)