I had seen Portrait of a Lady on Fire back when it came out at an AMC. I do have AMC Stubbs A-List, so that means I go there fairly frequently, but honestly, AMC is not my favorite local chain. That has more to do with the pain in the ass to get in and out of that particular mall than anything else, but one reason why I keep AMC’s service is a simple one: AMC is far more likely than any other chain in my neck of the woods to actually have an arthouse film in foreign language playing where I can actually see it. That’s how I got to see films like this one.
That said, for this rewatch, I had to go with Hulu. Hulu has ads, and I wasn’t expecting my arty French queer historical romance to have breaks for English-language pharmaceutical ads where I need to get my doctor’s permission to purchase anyway. That sort of thing really disrupts the pacing.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire is the story of painter Marianne (Noémie Merlant) and upperclass Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) and their brief but passionate love affair on the French island of Brittany at some point in the 18th century. Marianne was commissioned by Héloïse’s mother the Countess (Valeria Golino) to paint Héloïse’s portrait for her daughter’s upcoming wedding. Héloïse’s sister was supposed to marry a Milanese nobleman but died of an apparent suicide, after which Héloïse was recalled from the convent she was living in to take her older sister’s place. However, Héloïse won’t pose for the official portrait and has scared off multiple painters with her hostile attitude. As such, Marianne will need to pose as a companion for Héloïse’s daily walks, during which Marianne can study her charge and then paint the portrait. The Countess herself will be conducting a lot of business off-island and will only be a sporadic presence.
Now, there isn’t much of a film if Marianne paints the portrait without any serious issues and submits her work to the Countess. Instead, the two women slowly bond, with Marianne eventually confessing the truth to Héloïse, and Héloïse agreeing to pose for Marianne after Marianne burns the original portrait. From there, it is mostly Héloïse, Marianne, and a young maid named Sophie (Luàna Bajrami). What few other people the trio finds on the island are all women of different ages. There may be a single male in the area, and that’s an unidentified infant in the home of midwife (or some such) who performs and abortion for Sophie. Who is the father of Sophie’s unborn child? The film doesn’t say. It doesn’t really matter. This island is a refuge from men.
To be clear, what men do appear in the film do not come across as in any way villainous or anything. They just seem to be a sign that whatever the women have going for them is about to end. Marianne, Héloïse, and Sophie at one point head off to a gathering of some kind on a beach. It’s night time, there’s a fire burning, a song is sung, and there isn’t a man in sight. I get the impression that had a man been present, none of this would have happened. Indeed, as Héloïse and Marianne fall in love, a relationship both know is going to end, it ends at the precise moment a man is sitting in the kitchen enjoying a breakfast after the two women spend the night together. He doesn’t really do anything but wish Marianne a “good morning,” but Sophie is behaving much more restrained than she was before, the bright colors of the island are muted, and everything feels more restrained. Did the man do anything wrong? No. He just exists.
Then again, Héloïse at one point asked Marianne when the painting would be finished, and Marianne replied simply that it would be finished when it was finished, an exchange that could just as easily refer to their own relationship. At some point it was going to end, but until then, there was no saying exactly when that would be. Héloïse was always destined to go off to marry that Milanese man she’s never met and doesn’t even appear in the film, and Marianne was always going to return to the mainland and continue her work.
Now, I noted when I saw the film originally that there wasn’t a huge audience for my screening, anf that indeed one of the other two people present left early. I don’t want to cast aspersions or anything, but it does occur to me that anyone looking for some basic titillation will probably be disappointed. Or they won’t. This is a sexy film, but it is likewise not pornographic. Both lead actresses have nude scenes, and they do have sex, but let’s face it: many men do like the idea of two women together. I have heard it said that what men find to be a turn on there isn’t anywhere near the same thing as what lesbians actually do. That makes sense: porn is basically a fantasy anyway. Still, the sexual charge of the film revolves around things like one woman fingering the other’s armpit, and when Héloïse requests her lover draw a self-portrait in the pages of a book, Marianne does so by studying her own face in a mirror. Said mirror is placed above Héloïse’s bare public region, putting Marianne’s face right between Héloïse’s legs in a rather, let’s say, artistic manner.
Naturally as expected, the relationship does come to an end, and Marianne, having been relating the story to an art student of hers, takes a moment to point out her only two encounters with her former lover, both from afar, shows that the relationship is one that affected Héloïse greatly, even as she married and became a mother. But much like the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, referenced frequently in the film, this is a relationship that was never going to last, and maybe sometimes it’s best not to look back.
NEXT: So, speaking of doomed relationships, up next is the 1951 adaptation of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire. I suppose “doomed” is as good a way as any to describe any relationship in that film.
0 Comments