NZIFF: Female desire comes to life in Portrait of a Lady on Fire

French historical drama Portrait of a Lady on Fire, or Portrait de la Jeune Fille en Feu (2019), follows Marianne (Noémie Merlant), an artist forced to go undercover as a lady’s maid after she is commissioned by a countess (Valeria Golino) to paint the portrait of her daughter Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) after her sister commits suicide in 18th century France.

Héloïse, still grieving for the loss of her sister, is forced out of a convent to marry “a Milanese gentleman”, with the portrait a symbol of her marriage - and the loss of freedom which comes with it.

Previous attempts to paint Héloïse’s portrait were quickly thwarted by the headstrong woman, who refuses to pose for them and burns them when they are completed, leading Marianne to paint her subject - in fractured and Frankensteinian pieces - in secret.

The film is sparse in dialogue, instead favouring long takes as the women gaze at each other. While Marianne’s gaze is initially detached and measured - an artist studying, and committing to memory, her unknowing mistress - the looks soon develop into something more.

Rich in colour, the film is almost dream-like in its depiction of female desire, of shared glances and knowing smiles, as well as the haunting phantasmagoria of Héloïse’s marriage upon the completion of the portrait. The portrait and its iterations, too, captures an almost rapturous love between artist and subject which defies meaning.

The film, directed by Celine Sciamma (Tomboy, Water Lilies), won the 2019 Cannes Film Festival’s Queer Palm, becoming the first film by a female director to do so, and also took home a best screenplay nod.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is now screening at the New Zealand International Film Festival.

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