Review: Portrait Of A Lady On Fire

Image courtesy of Neon.

Celine Sciamma's heralded "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" is a gorgeous period romance that lives up to the hype accompanying the picture since its debut at the Cannes Film Festival last year. Sciamma's films typically tell stories that immerse themselves in the lives of young women - her previous work includes the sexual awakening tale "Water Lillies" and the lovely coming of age story "Girlhood" - and her latest is no different.

Set somewhere on the coast of Brittany in the 1770s, the picture tells the story of Marianne (Noemie Merlant), an artist-for-hire whom we first meet as she teaches a class some years after the film's main story takes place. As she poses for her class full of girls, who are drawing her, one student pulls out an old painting, which shares the film's title, and Marianne is obviously upset at seeing this reminder of the past.

The story jumps back some years as Marianne arrives in the scenic coastal town in which she has been hired. She is told she is to paint the portrait of a young woman named Heloise (Adele Haenel), who previously gave other portraitists trouble because she refused to allow her face to be painted. The reason for doing so is that her mother (Valeria Golino) has married her off to an Italian man, whom she doesn't want to marry, and the painting is to arrive at her new home before she does. Therefore, if she delays the painting's arrival, she deduces that she can delay the marriage itself.

Upon arrival, Marianne is introduced as a young woman who will accompany Heloise on her walks along the coast - her mother doesn't want her to go alone after it appears that Heloise's sister committed suicide by jumping off a cliff. Heloise doesn't know that Marianne is a painter, and Marianne attempts to study Heloise's face on their walks, so that she can return to her room at night and paint her portrait from memory.

Although Heloise comes off as distant at first, she and Marianne form a bond that leads to a friendship, which leads to, well, more than just that. "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" is fairly frank with its sex scenes, but its love story unfolds more in a classical sense. There's a lovely scene in which the two young women - accompanied by housemaid Sophie (Luana Bajrami) - read aloud the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, and Sophie is outraged to learn that Orpheus looked back, therefore losing his love forever, after being told not to. We later learn that this particular myth wasn't chosen by the filmmakers at random.

There's a haunting and gorgeous sequence in which the women attend a gathering on the beach at night around a bonfire, and the three leads take part in what could best be described as a sing-a-long. The sequence is only a prelude, however, to the three beautifully melancholic scenes that culminate the film - one referring back to the Orphic myth, while another involves the viewing of a painting in a gallery and the third a scene at an opera house, where the "Summer" section from Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" evokes great emotion from one of the characters.

This is a lovely and powerful film. All three of the leads are terrific, especially Merlant, and the photography - and accompanying gorgeous scenery - is often breathtaking. Much like "Call Me By Your Name," Sciamma's film is a love story that the viewer recognizes from the start will eventually end. But also much like that previous picture, "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" isn't a tragedy, but rather a tale in which two people who love each other learn something about themselves and life in the process, and come away better people from the experience, even if their future is no longer shared. It's a real stunner.