Description:
Call Number: DVD PN1997.2 .S473 2011
Séraphine is an elegantly fictionalized biopic about 19th century modern primitive painter, Séraphine de Senlis, who was a contemporary of Henri Rousseau's. The tale spans approximately 25 years during which Séraphine and her champion, German art critic and collector, Wilhelm Uhde, survive two wars and drastic economic changes that affect the art market. Martin Provost's feature is completely character driven, and as such relies on Yolande Moreau's caring portrayal of the eccentric Séraphine, and Ulrich Tukur's calm, academic demeanor as Mr. Uhde. In Provost's telling of this virtually
Call Number: DVD PN1997.2 .S473 2011
Séraphine is an elegantly fictionalized biopic about 19th century modern primitive painter, Séraphine de Senlis, who was a contemporary of Henri Rousseau's. The tale spans approximately 25 years during which Séraphine and her champion, German art critic and collector, Wilhelm Uhde, survive two wars and drastic economic changes that affect the art market. Martin Provost's feature is completely character driven, and as such relies on Yolande Moreau's caring portrayal of the eccentric Séraphine, and Ulrich Tukur's calm, academic demeanor as Mr. Uhde. In Provost's telling of this virtually unknown story, Séraphine is a middle-aged woman working as a housekeeper in Senlis, France, when Uhde arrives as a guest and discovers that this odd woman is a talented visionary artist. Since Uhde's main focus is garnering respect and precious Parisian salon space for artists deemed "naive," it is an uncanny and fortuitous coincidence that he stumbles upon Séraphine. Scenes alternate primarily between those encounters between Séraphine and her new friend, and those depicting Séraphine's thought processes or unique working methods. Some of the most beauteous sequences unfold as Séraphine hunts pastoral stream banks for wild plants and soil samples she uses for paint pigment in her floral landscapes. This artist's religious upbringing clearly influences her piously austere lifestyle, and the film implies that the mania plaguing her is exacerbated by delusions of saintliness. Indeed, the film does a wonderful job of showing the subtleties of Séraphine's mental illness in both positive and negative lights. It also elucidates the tragic political circumstances that prevented Séraphine from becoming as renowned as Rousseau, which doubles the story's sense of improbability and chance meeting. The film, on one level, revivifies a spectacular tale to rescue an artist from obscurity. More importantly, though, it poetically questions the amount of luck involved in survival by asking how much control one ultimately has over one's own life. --Trinie Dalton
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Manufacturer: Music Box Films
Release date: 23 March 2010
EAN: 0705105742151 UPC: 705105742151
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