about lovers coding their feelings onto worldly
things, and the dance of desire that precedes
the birth of love.
It is the fourth feature by French auteur
Céline Sciamma as director, coming afterWater
Lilies,TomboyandGirlhood, although her
writing credits are more numerous and include
the animated heartbreakerMy Life As
A Courgette. Her recurring obsession is with
marginalised people, who are often queer, and
their social microcosms at times of palpable
discovery and growth. Stories are driven by
naturalistic events, but powered by emotions
too huge to ever be fully articulated.Portrait
Of A Lady On Fireis both a natural progression
in Sciamma’s work and a formal departure of
existential consequence, for the story it tells is
framed as a memory, bookended by two scenes
from a future time. As such, the audience
perceives the story as both a real-time event,
and a treasure from the past.
anxious pursuit. “I’ve dreamed of that for years,”
she says, stopping right on the edge, then
whipping round so that her face is visible for
the first time.
“Dying?” asks Marianne, for Héloïse had
a sister who jumped off a cliff to her death.
“Running,” says Héloïse.
From this very first moment, the rapport
between the ladies is intense. Of Sciamma’s
many strengths, it is her screenwriting that lays
the rhythm of this tale. She is in no hurry to take
the romance to a place of heated declaration and
sexual exploration. Her focus is on developingMarianne is a painter employed by La
Comtesse to secretly craft a likeness of her
daughter. The secrecy is necessary as Héloïse
refuses to have her portrait painted. La
Comtesse instructs Marianne to pose as a
walking companion, and via this subterfuge
she becomes close enough to gain visual insights
for the portrait that will be sent to Héloïse’s
soon-to-be husband, a Milanese nobleman.
The wedding cannot go ahead without the
portrait, and this is exactly why Héloïse refuses
to pose for it. She does not want to be married.
It is through Marianne that Sciamma frames
this tale. We do not see Héloïse until 20 minutes
have gone. The first thing she does is run as fast
as she can towards a cliff edge, with Marianne inTop:Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) cuts a lonely figure on a Brittany
beach.Above:“A film about the female gaze.”❯ON SCREEN