Since her shimmering, shattering period romance “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” premiered to rapturous acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival, director Céline Sciamma has…
Since her shimmering, shattering period romance “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” premiered to rapturous acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival, director Céline Sciamma has had some time to consider the passionate response.
“I think it’s because it’s a love story,” Sciamma said in an interview on a sunny terrace in Cannes. “You can get some love back. It’s kind of beautiful, actually.”
The French filmmaker’s movie has arguably provoked more ardor than anything else in Cannes. “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” has been hailed as a masterpiece not just for the tender relationship it depicts between the young painter Marianne (Noémie Merlant) and her portrait subject, Heloise (Adéle Haenel), in 18th century France, but for its resonate and acutely contemporary portrait of female identity as reflected in art.
In the film, Marianne has been hired by Heloise’s mother to paint her daughter’s portrait for her marriage to a Milanese man she has never met. Heloise, a fiercely independent young woman, resents both the wedding and the portrait, so Marianne, posing as a companion, must steal glances to capture her. It is a movie built subversively through looks and glimpses. A love develops, one seen and rendered through a woman’s eyes.
Sciamma was inspired to make the film by forgotten women who painted, mostly other women, in the 1700s.
