Por­trait of a Lady on Fire

One of the first things they teach in life-draw­ing class­es is that you should look at your sub­ject more than your paper. By look­ing, you learn the essen­tials: pro­por­tion; pos­ture; the direc­tion of the light. But main­tain that gaze and, if you’re a good artist, you might just get beyond the sur­face, past all the mechan­ics, and catch a glimpse of the essence of your sub­ject – the very spir­it you hope to memo­ri­alise with your craft.

Mar­i­anne (Noémie Mer­lant) is a painter and the main pro­tag­o­nist of Céline Sciamma’s fourth direc­to­r­i­al fea­ture, Por­trait of a Lady on Fire. She is some­one who under­stands the impor­tance of look­ing. In the story’s 18^th-cen­tu­ry set­ting, she’s giv­en that very task: to observe and then paint a por­trait of Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), which will then be sent to a Milanese noble­man in the hope of a betrothal. The catch: Héloïse refus­es to sit for a painter, so Mar­i­anne must study her sub­ject under the pre­tence that she’s a hired com­pan­ion and then ren­der Héloïse’s like­ness from memory.

Through their walks along Brittany’s rugged coast­line, the two women form a bond despite – or because of – their dif­fer­ences: Héloïse, the lone­ly, head­strong aris­to­crat, and Mar­i­anne, lib­er­at­ed by her tal­ent yet more reserved. The painter’s attempts to study her sub­ject – the curve of an ear, the bridge of a nose – are thwart­ed by Héloïse’s own unfor­giv­ing return gaze.

Every frame of Sciamma’s film could hang in a nation­al gallery. Cos­tume design­er Dorothée Guiraud des­ig­nates the women with com­ple­men­tary colours: red for Mar­i­anne and green for Héloïse. DoP Claire Math­on, mean­while, out­lines the fig­ures against the bril­liant blues of the sea and sky.

All of this could be stuffy in the wrong hands, but Sciamma’s film­mak­ing is star­tling­ly mod­ern and full of ener­gy. A choral per­for­mance around a bon­fire, a dress catch­ing fire and a woman run­ning trans­late as moments of pure, heart-quick­en­ing dra­ma, but they’re well earned. As with her pre­vi­ous fea­tures, Sci­amma cares more for a detail than a flour­ish, and Por­trait of a Lady on Fire takes its time to burn.

The direc­tor also tells sto­ries with­out dis­il­lu­sion. The film’s fem­i­nism is rad­i­cal in the ques­tions it asks: What does the world look like through a woman’s eyes? What does art look like when a woman holds the tools? Mid­way through the film comes one answer, as Mar­i­anne sketch­es an abor­tion pro­ce­dure. This is the his­to­ry that’s been sup­pressed by the patri­ar­chal grasp on art.

Despite an out­look that seems to speak to the con­tem­po­rary age, the film is also anchored in its peri­od. The rela­tion­ship between Mar­i­anne and Héloïse is one that can’t last and the por­trait must be paint­ed. ​“When do we know it’s fin­ished?” asks Héloïse, watch­ing Mar­i­anne work. ​“At one point, we stop,” is her reply. For Sci­amma, this is art’s pur­pose: to memo­ri­alise and, in doing so, keep the things that can’t last as flesh alive.

Sci­amma has achieved some­thing immense with Por­trait of a Lady on Fire. It’s a film that shakes the dust off of the fusty peri­od dra­ma and unearths the for­got­ten lives of women. The end­ing is the cher­ry on top: a final shot that leaves you deliri­ous in its emo­tion­al intensity.