In 1770, Marianne (Noémie Merlant) arrives on a Breton island at the behest of a wealthy owner (Valeria Golino) who has commissioned her to paint a portrait of her daughter Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), freshly out of the convent, to send to her future husband.
Reluctant to this marriage, Héloïse refuses to pose. Marianne must disguise herself as her companion and memorize her beauty and gestures to paint her. Soon, a more intimate bond develops between the two young women.
Both solitary – one due to her status as a female artist, very rare in the 18th century, the other due to her recent exit from the convent – they discover friendship, and then love. A consuming passion that will eventually frustrate them because of the marital arrangements set by Héloïse’s mother.
Thanks to an original screenplay (Screenplay Award at Cannes), Céline Sciamma delivers a true poem.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire is an intense period romantic drama about feminine desire.
Héloïse, who refuses the pose, like the chosen future husband. The painter is forced to observe her without her knowledge to capture every detail later in the intimacy of her room. From this closeness and the intensity of her gaze on even the smallest details of her subject, confusion and affection soon arise, along with the forewarning of their loss in a time that assigns women to the role of wife and mother, a fate they cannot escape.
But beyond these forbidden loves, it is the relationship between the artist and her model and the necessity to abandon the latter once the work is completed that is explored.
First, the painter’s gaze on a model who eludes her. Depicted as a game, a few scenes (the beach) brilliantly illustrate this tension gradually building between Adèle Haenel and Noémie Merlant’s characters. Héloïse, by refusing her portrait, avoids her own representation, hence her own memory.
The film is imbued with a dreamlike poetry. Through the power of dialogue, Céline Sciamma creates an ineffable passion that transcends the characters, conveying with just a few words and glances the birth of a romantic love rarely seen in cinema.
Thus, the two women display restraint throughout the film. All this restraint for an explosion.
Indeed, the smiles and tears are held back by the actresses until the explosion of the film’s final shot, where Adèle Haenel delivers an impressive performance in a static shot, brimming with humanity and hope.
