Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a 2019 French drama about an artist who begins to fall in love with the woman she is hired to paint.
There have been movies made before that were set when arranged marriages were common. Look to a lot of movies released by Disney for examples. One of my favorites of this trope was in Jane Campion‘s The Piano which involved a Mute Women (Holly Hunter) to be engaged to the handsome, boorish Army captain (Sam Neill), though has feelings for the odd looking but lovable neighbor (Harvey Keitel), who is keeping her piano at his place because the Captain won’t allow it at his. I mention this movie because both are similar in terms of plot. Instead of a piano, our main character brings her canvas and her painting supplies. There is a woman who is forced into a marriage she doesn’t want. Both have characters who long for something else but due to the culture at that time, have a hard time in achieving it.
The movie begins with Marianne (Noemie Merlant) telling her art students about a painting she made that is the very same title of this movie. We cut to several years ago, and our artist is on her way to an isolated island to paint a portrait of a young lady for her upcoming arranged marriage. The subject of Marriane’s project is Heloise (Adele Haenel) who is very much against this proposal that was arranged by her mother (or at least I assumed she was) La Comtesse (Valeria Golino). The only rule that Marianne must follow is that she must never let Heloise know that she is being painted. Other artists have tried but failed to capture the image that La Comtesse would find suitable. After weeks of drawing her from just mainly memory. The two women strike up a friendship which then evolves into a romance.
Based on the time it’s set in and what culture was like to homosexuals back then, I was expecting there to be a ruthless gay bashing character who does everything to keep our two lovers apart. But no, there are only four characters in this. I forgot to mention the young maid Sophie (Luana Bajami) and none of them seem to have any prejudicial tropes that I could find. We don’t even meet the man who Heloise is suppose to marry to see if he is a bad guy or not. I get that being forced into a situation like this is wrong no matter what, but he may be just as against the whole thing as she was. What, I’m trying to say is that this movie has no conflict and if it does, it’s hidden very well. There was nothing in this movie that made me feel that these two would fight to stay together and I never felt there was a character or situation that would tear them apart except for time. You can do a movie with just internal conflict but I barely saw any in this too.
Director Celine Sciamma made an impact in 2014 with a movie called Girlhood. I thought that overall movie had decent performances and an alright script but nothing to really rave about. But it has one sequence where the girls are in a hotel singing Rihanna‘s Diamonds that is so well shot, it becomes transfixing and was one of the best scenes of the movie. That same feeling comes back in Portrait of a Lady on Fire when our three women are on a beach and this group of women do this chant singing thing that I can’t describe but it is very beautiful.
Our main cast members are good and they serve the story well, but the main star of the movie is cinematographer Claire Mathon. She films every shot like it’s a 17th century painting. I would put this up there with Barry Lyndon as both movies that look like a moving art piece. If I saw this earlier, it would be my choice to win at the Oscars over 1917 for that category. Portrait of a Lady on Fire looks amazing on the big screen but if you are expecting a story that is interesting or engages you. I’m afraid you will be disappointed. As much as I love how well it looks and fully respect the work that went into it. Without a compelling story or characters. I’m only getting fantastic icing and mediocre cake.