LogFAQs > #981675494

5. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Originally released as Portrait de la jeune fille en feu, 2019, France
Director: Cline Sciamma

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/d99be2a3.jpg
Perhaps he makes a choice. He chooses the memory of her. Thats why he turns. He doesnt make the lovers choice, but the poets.

Rankings:

Karo: 1
Seginus: 9
Exdeath: 12
Johnbobb: 14
Inviso: 20
Total: 56 (tiebreaker score: 21)

Karo:

A female artist is sent to commission the portrait of a bride to be, only to discover that her subject's reluctance to be painted stems from her distaste towards the idea of marriage. As no painter can finish her portrait, her husband-to-be has no way of knowing that she has all the requisite number of eyes and noses and thus cannot give his approval of the marriage.
Thus she begins to surreptitiously paint the young woman without her knowledge, and our story begins. What starts as insincere trickery turns to friendship. That friendship soon turns to romance. But such a pairing sadly cannot be in world where love takes a backseat to propriety and the female is naught be a commodity to be traded away for political clout.
The beauty of their relationship is juxtaposed with cruelty of a society that cannot accept their feelings, and although they cannot be together they forever left a little piece of themselves behind on that remote island.
I could truly feel what the characters are feeling, both their deep love and their deep pain. This is how you write a romance, and this is how you make a movie.
Simply wonderful.

Seginus:

Fawlessly executed, a high benchmark for forbidden romance period dramas. Each scene is considerately measured and choreographed, every shot designed as a moving painting, it packs so much tension beneath the surface without descending to cheap melodrama. The leads chemistry leaps off the screen, I know this is partly the male gaze talking (these ladies are unfairly gorgeous) but its one of the best romances Ive seen in a movie.

For a period piece, I love the decision to have no incidental music whatsoever. This really helps transport the viewer to back there was no recorded music, no proverbial soundtrack to our lives running in the background. Music was rare and ephemeral. For most of the runtime, the soundtrack emphasizes waves on the shore and brushes on canvas and consequently, the three scenes of diegetic music (which develop in intensity - harpsichord, choir, orchestra) are charged with significance and potency. When we see Heloise overwhelmed at the end, its not just because Vivaldi reminds of her Marianne, its also that shes never heard an orchestra before.

One teeny little nitpick is that sometimes I think the digital photography fudges the shadows in the darker scenes, and I cant help but wonder how it would look if it were shot on film. I only say this because I saw it in theaters and have the 4k blu-ray, its not a streaming quality thing. But its so minor, most of the movie is in bright daylight and looks immaculate anyways.

Exdeath:

Often considered one of the greatest films of this century so far, Cline Sciamma's period piece drama mostly carries itself through the excellent performances and richly realized characters, but the big narrative tricks are the metaphor of Orpheus and Eurydice introduced around halfway and an interesting framing device years after the main events, which is the only place where we actually see the titular painting. Marianne raises the notion that Orpheus might have looked back at Eurydice to choose the memory of her over her living self, which sets up the girls' final encounter where Heloise in her white wedding dress commands her to take one last look back at her, but perhaps moreso it foreshadows the ending where Heloise is so enraptured by the Vivaldi concerto Marianne told her about that she doesn't notice Marianne herself is in the room watching her.

For me, given how acclaimed this film is I was a little surprised how straight of a period piece/drama it was. I found myself wishing for a little more art film je ne sais quoi, like a Holy Mountain "this is a film" ending or some Mirror-style crazy nonlinear editing - or at least a Beau Travail dance scene. Without that I almost feel lost trying to provide a better writeup, all I can think to say is that I liked it and found it emotionally resonant but I don't know that I would call it one of the greatest films of all time.

Johnbobb:

wait I thought I already watched The Passion of Joan of Arc! a lot of portrait, a lot of lady, and a decent amount of fire. gotta appreciate a movie that delivers on its promises. it's a lot like killer klowns from outer space in that way.

Favorite line from a 1/2 star Letterboxd review:
It's actually a landscape of a lady on fire

Inviso:

On the one hand, I do grasp the concept behind this movie. Everything about it is about the life of a woman in a certain era of history: namely how women were conditioned at that time to be seen and not heard. It almost feels like a womens story in which the characters themselves are aware in-universe that its a womens story. There are effectively three major female characters, and a fourth who pops in and out from time to time. Ironically enough, the only times we see men during the course of the film are at the beginning (dropping our protagonist off at this remote mansion which is meant to represent a form of liberation) and then towards the end when the protagonist arrives in the dining hall to find a man waiting to collect her painting for transporteffectively jolting her back to the real world, where she and her (at that point) lover are side characters in the story of a mans world.

I say all of that with the understanding that this film seems to be a form of empowerment. Marianne wants to be respected for her work, but as were shown by her painting of Orpheus/Eurydice at the end, she still has to paint under the name of a male painter. Heloise doesnt want to just get married off to some guy she doesnt know, all because her sister died and SOMEONE has to take her place. And Sophie is all about women in the working class, complete with her obtaining of an abortion. These three women are the main characters of the film, bonding with one another and feeling that level of liberation until everything returns to the status quo at the end. In that regard, the movie has some important things to say about sisterhood and lesbian romance.

With that out of the way though, I didnt enjoy this. I found it extremely slow and extremely boring, and the problem with slow and boring is that when you are going for a metaphor (Orpheus & Eurydice is being relayed to the trio around the middle of the movie, and afterwards there are images of Marianne refusing to look back at Heloise in a wedding dress, lest she lose her forever, culminating in Heloise FORCING Marianne to look back before she departs). Thats a good metaphor, except the Orpheus & Eurydice stuff comes way too late in the film and doesnt feel like a running themeand its so bogged down by slow pacing that I didnt even notice the imagery until the films essentially says it out loud in the art gallery during the ending. It's just SO slow and subtle that it drags and doesnt do enough to truly make me invested in the film overall.