Portrait of a Lady on Fire. (15.)
Directed by Céline Sciamma.
Starring Noémie Merlant, Adèle Haenel, Luàna Bajrami, Valeria Golino, Christel Baras, Armande Boulanger. Subtitled. 122 mins.
An artist (Merlant) is commissioned by the mother (Golina) to go to an isolated island and paint a young lady (Haenel.) The catch is that the portrait is an enticement to purchase, to be sent to Milan to secure a match with a well-placed suitor. The subject refuses to be painted so the painter has to pose as a companion and try to complete the work from memory.
Sciamma's casually original movie doesn't have many obvious antecedents, but I've got stuck on the notion of it being a same-sex reworking of The Piano: an artist is shipped perilously to a remote location; 19th-century women been treated like chattel; an erotic relationship developed through an artistic endeavour. This though has a calm authority that makes most other movies look desperate and flustered. There is an austerity to it: each scene contains what is needed and nothing more. It's a Portrait of a Lady by an artist who is on fire.
Directed by Céline Sciamma.
Starring Noémie Merlant, Adèle Haenel, Luàna Bajrami, Valeria Golino, Christel Baras, Armande Boulanger. Subtitled. 122 mins.
An artist (Merlant) is commissioned by the mother (Golina) to go to an isolated island and paint a young lady (Haenel.) The catch is that the portrait is an enticement to purchase, to be sent to Milan to secure a match with a well-placed suitor. The subject refuses to be painted so the painter has to pose as a companion and try to complete the work from memory.
Sciamma's casually original movie doesn't have many obvious antecedents, but I've got stuck on the notion of it being a same-sex reworking of The Piano: an artist is shipped perilously to a remote location; 19th-century women been treated like chattel; an erotic relationship developed through an artistic endeavour. This though has a calm authority that makes most other movies look desperate and flustered. There is an austerity to it: each scene contains what is needed and nothing more. It's a Portrait of a Lady by an artist who is on fire.
