LoginSince I kept hearing some really good things about this flick, I was really eager to check it out. The tricky thing is that it is in fact a really predictable story and, yet, it was still quite fascinating to behold and easily one of the best love stories I have seen in a very long time. To be honest, eventually, we don’t learn much about these two young women after all but, from the very first moment they met each other, there was such a massive chemistry between them. Obviously, Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel should be praised as they both delivered such strong performances, especially since their characters usually didn’t say what they thought but used mostly only their eyes. The fact that I have always been fascinated by Art, especially painting, made me enjoy this movie even more, even if the portrait was basically only an excuse for these 2 girls to spend as much time together as possible. The interesting thing about this doomed love story was that, even though it might seem tragic, somehow, because it did last only a few days, the memory of these few passionate days will always remain perfect, pretty much like the story of Orpheus and Eurydice which was read by the characters during this movie. Finally, it was also a tale about freedom, or at least, the yearning for freedom. Indeed, from the moment Héloïse’s mother left them, for the very first and maybe also the last time in their lives, they could enjoy the freedom of being themselves without any social boundaries, even Sophie the servant. I also wonder what to make of the fact that all the male characters have been removed or erased and maybe it was also linked to this feminist idea of freedom as men are mostly responsible for most of the literal and figurative shackles in every women’s lives. Anyway, to conclude, the damned thing was just quite fascinating and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire Reviews
A very good movie
Posted : 3 years, 3 months ago on 2 February 2021 09:51
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Portrait of a Lady on Fire review
Posted : 3 years, 11 months ago on 14 June 2020 07:40
Céline Sciamma reveals the full scope of her talent with her fourth feature film, "Portrait of a Lady on Fire". Applying the feminist preoccupations and gender fluidity of her previous work to this eminently lavish and soul-stirring period piece, Sciamma expands on the ideology present in her repertoire, thus asserting her status as a feminist auteur, modulating and unerringly capturing the viewpoint of constricted women in a patriarchal world without ever requiring a male beyond the edge of the frame. Women take centre stage here, and the effect is as revelatory, passionate and expressive as you would expect. Lucidly summoning up the past, in this case the 18th century, one enters a claustrophobic microcosm and quickly becomes swept up in the intensity, isolation and intimacy of it all. Simmering and slow-burning, "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" delivers a breathtakingly beautiful backdrop for its abundantly layered story, abounding with allusions, themes, references and details, concerning the forbidden love affair between a female painter tasked with painting, mainly from memory, a wedding portrait of a reluctant young bride without her consent. Owing to the gender inequality and social impediments of the era, it is unfeasible that the painter's love for her betrothed subject will materialise into anything beyond a series of encounters; the measured journey towards their brief connection proves more enchanting and rewarding than any far-fetched happy ending. Sciamma deftly subverts the male gaze theory by tempering the minimal exposition process of the leisurely paced, exceptionally lean narrative with attentively designed visions of the conflicted painter's experience. Exiguous with levels of complex, lovingly crafted, executed and performed cinematic art transcending time and place, "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" gives power to the powerless and is all the more astonishing a feat, succeeding where so many precursory films failed: a warranted, immersive experience entirely from a female perspective, ergo redeeming so many decades of the dominant male gaze in cinema.
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Portrait of a Lady on Fire review
Posted : 4 years, 3 months ago on 9 February 2020 04:06
So elegant, so measured up in every light and angle, but characters are cute and even naif while being revolutionary. Grat photo and composition.
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