Written and directed by Céline Sciamma
Starring Noémie Merlant, Adèle Haenel, and Valeria Golina
MPAA rating: R, for depictions of female “friendship”
Running time: 2 hours 1 minute

by Jaime Davis, The Fixer

Past loves have a way of sticking with us, whether we want them to or not. It’s as if there’s a ghost trailing you, taking the shape of the person, or your memories, or what you knew of them, or what was once between you…tugging on you to wonder, or at the very least, remember. In Portrait of a Lady on Fire, a dreamy, female-centric vision of two women fatefully falling in love in 18th century France, we watch one character, Marianne (Noémie Merlant), as she’s haunted by the ghost of her love Héloise before, during, and after the inevitable end of their relationship.

Portrait is, after all, a love story, but one that has much to say about the representation of women, specifically women loving other women, in film. As someone who identifies as part of the LGBTQ+ community, filmmaker Céline Sciamma takes this very seriously, and as a compatriot in that way, I’m fascinated with how such a seemingly simple, quiet film can set fire to so much - the notion of the male gaze, how female-identifying relationships are featured onscreen, the representation of autonomy women previously had over their lives. From these ashes, and the ashes of the director’s real-life relationship with actress Adèle Haenel (Héloise in Portrait and Floriane in Sciamma’s Water Lilies) comes an utterly lovely film I’m sure the Criterion angels are already whispering about. Through the ending of their relationship, Sciamma and Haenel have birthed a beautiful new portrait honoring the type of bond only shared with a past love.

Sciamma is known for tackling subjects not often depicted in French cinema, or film in general. Her 2007 feature debut Water Lilies tells of three young girls entangled in an impossible love triangle. In 2011, she wrote and directed Tomboy, about a young girl pretending to be a boy, and the identity unlocked as a result. Later, Sciamma made Girlhood (2014), closely following a quartet of economically struggling young black women on the outskirts of Paris, a group the director has claimed are often underrepresented in modern French film. In all of her work, there is this sense of breaking down certain walls of storytelling, of what’s considered the norm in film. Her style is always visually gorgeous, quiet, and infused with nature as character. In Tomboy and Girlhood specifically, there are moments when trees and foliage “speak” - allowing moments onscreen to truly sink in, for the viewer to more fully engage in the world they’re experiencing. These realistic, natural elements are as much a part of the sound design as they are of the visual makeup of her films, a signature I find bewitching with every watch. I interpret them in a very straightforward way - her characters may not reflect conventional norms and ideals, however they are just as natural, normal, and of this world as anyone or anything else featured in cinema.

Beyond my (insanely oversimplified) interpretation, Sciamma challenges how we engage in and perceive visual narratives. In Baudry’s explanation of apparatus theory, we understand that certain films are made up of a series of realistic shots and visuals, but the technology behind the film’s makeup alter our perception and understanding, resulting in a highly subjective viewing experience in which the line between reality and story is blurred. Baudry argues that this leads audiences into a dream-like state, and I believe that in this way, we bring much of our own conscious and subconscious ideals, thoughts, norms, and experiences into our film-watching. This concept really caught hold of me in film school, and is the main reason why many of my film reviews are littered with rambling, never-ending tales of my personal history. I believe it can be hard, at times, to truly watch movies with an objective eye - what you see in the frame is important because the result is often a strong subjective response. Alternatively, what Sciamma brings forth with Portrait is that the things not caught on film, the things not visualized via the apparatus in question are just as important. As Sciamma recently stated, “What we leave out of the frame isn’t absent. It defines the frame.” She’s specifically referencing the absence of any major male-identifying characters in Portrait, but I see this as meaning so much more. In school, I was taught repeatedly to focus only on what’s in the frame, what’s being shared, and to discard that which is not revealed. Maybe I took that way too seriously, or it’s something that stuck a little too much with me, but in this way Portrait has completely opened the way I read and interpret the language of movies.

Sciamma’s signature elements, as previously mentioned, are certainly on display in Portrait but to even more captivating effect. This time around her subject matter is, on paper, a bit dull: two women in oppressive 18th century France are paired together in relative confinement for a short period of time, eventually wading deep into sexual tension with one another before gloriously falling in love. Marianne is a portraitist (one of few women in her profession at the time, no doubt) tasked with officially painting the likeness of headstrong Héloise. If a certain Italian nobleman likes what he sees in the portrait, he will marry her. Héloise, currently mourning a family tragedy, is no fool, and has dodged a couple other (male) artists before Marianne is assigned to the case surreptitiously as her companion by day, secret portrait artist by night. The first half of the film is filled with long stares, little dialogue, and natural elements of wind and water that “speak” volumes as we watch desire slowly unfold between the two women. It’s not necessarily sex that Sciamma is so focused on, though a certain intimacy is displayed. The focus on the sexual tension in essence subverts the male gaze away. It’s less about watching and waiting for a flash of skin and the inevitable sexual act, but more about experiencing how Sciamma tends to the fires roaring within Marianne and Héloise. Overall, the script is excitedly liberating in its depiction of sexual freedom. It’s about queer love, yes, but also not; analyzing the film through queer theory, sexuality can be fluid, ambiguous, ever-changing. So more than anything, I view Portrait as being about a larger-than-life love that just so happens to be between two women.

Beyond story, the acting and technical elements here are stellar. The connection between Merlant and Haenel is just electric - the way they look at each other? Damn. “Get you a person who looks at you the way Haenel looks at Merlant” is a meme I’m gonna make right after I finish writing this. Claire Mathon’s cinematography is lush and gorgeous, the natural soundscape of beach and wind and water crashing seductive as you fall, head-first, head over heels in love with these characters and this perfect film. Wait…shhhhh. Do you hear that? It must be those Criterion angels calling.