Héloïse, however, rejects the marriage and refuses to sit for a portrait. Fittingly for a period piece, Sciamma’s film centres around a marriage that a countess (Valeria Golino) has arranged between her daughter Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) and a nameless Milanese gentleman, who requires a promissory portrait in advance of the wedding. Winner of the 2019 Best Screenplay award at the Cannes Film Festival, Portrait of a Lady on Fire – which opens in the US and UK on 14 and 28 February respectively – is Sciamma’s fourth feature film and her first period drama, numbering among several recently released lesbian historical dramas in film and television such as The Favourite (2018), Wild Nights with Emily (2018), Gentleman Jack (2019) and Elisa & Marcela (2019). However, the film is structured around the myth’s implication that looking, particularly of the forbidden sort, might ruin you, but that sometimes – when love, art or beauty are involved – ruin can be a risk worth taking.Ĭéline Sciamma, Portrait of A Lady on Fire, 2019, film still. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), French writer-director Céline Sciamma’s story of queer love on a secluded family estate on an island off the coast of Brittany around 1770, only explicitly references the myth of Orpheus twice: in a book and a painting. Orpheus looked, and was punished with the kind of loss that cracks you open. Hades, god of the underworld, allowed Eurydice to follow Orpheus back to the world of the living, but delimited Orpheus’s sight: if he turned back to look at her, he would lose her forever. Think back, for example, to the Greek myth of Orpheus, who journeyed to the underworld to plead for the return of his dead wife, Eurydice. I see this picture called "The perfect film", to that I must conclude this is your first time, there's much more in store for you.We’ve known for a long time that looking is dangerous. Offended as I was by the lack of substance within the picture, they provided me with something to get passionate about, even if that may be the distaste for the picture itself. Perhaps this film excels at nothing.Īs I do with any art related enterprise, I give props to the filmmakers for making art, participating in the craft, and for throwing in their two cents. Just as I relaxed uncomfortably, a thought of Barry Lyndon came to my head. Resorting to taking in the pretty pictures, I landed at the conclusion that this was what the film was, and just that. I tossed and turned in this manner until I had no longer cared as to construe purpose in the film. Maybe that was the point, a realist approach, showing it as it were, I had surmised. I was grasping for threads to follow, themes of substance, anything, I was starving. I found myself counting the seconds between each line of dialogue delivered. It gave me the latter, perhaps the most tedious, plodding, most unenjoyable cinema experience in recent memory. I waited for this movie to give me anything, something I could leave with, something to shock me, something I haven't seen before. To evoke the saying "throw me a bone", this movie showed me its bones, one by one, placed them clumsily into its various pockets and tripped into the sea. I felt gypped, cheated, mislead, though, happy to see the back of it. I, unfortunately, find myself to be one of few (at least vocal) cinemagoers who did not like the film. My concern has grown since going to watch it. I find it dubious that there exist very few negative reviews for this film, as I would with any film. I UNDERSTAND THE STRUGGLE." - What people think after watching this imagined by my gf. "Oh my God, like.Being **** back then for women must have been SOoooo Harrrrrd. but shots of her walking around an empty dark building slowly with a candle can only hold my attention for so long. Lots of long shots with no music or dialogue. I'm glad everyone is enjoying this movie. Hearing the audience giggle at certain points showed the company I was in. There were some moments I enjoyed for sure. I loved the opening on the boat, gave a sense of raw realism. Some very beautiful shots & imagery in this movie. The close-up shots of her painting were nice but did get a bit much for me at times. This movie is 5/5 if you enjoy movies with minimal story and long shots of peoples faces. "The director probably had kids and was married when she realized she was a lesbian and was like.
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