1/20/2024 0 Comments Portrait of a lady on fire bookIndeed, it shapes some of their choices, framing the ways in which the women can rebel. But the near-total absence of men does not mean the patriarchy has been banished. 4 There is a sense that the outside world – and the patriarchy – is far away from this island. The sequence is part of the lovely freedom that falls upon the middle of the film, part of what critic Ela Bittencourt calls a “long, exquisite stretch,” where Marianne and Héloïse “do almost nothing but look at each other…”. Sciamma maintains the gesture but jump cuts to the beach, and both women finally consummate their feelings for each other. She collapses to the ground and Marianne grasps her arm. 3 Surrounded by the women’s soaring voices, the soon-to-be-lovers eye each other across the crackling fire, before Héloïse’s dress catches fire. They are singing and clapping to La Jeune Fille en Feu (The Young Woman On Fire), which was composed especially for the film. Only when the camera slowly pans to the fire do we see that the singing comes from the other women. This is the first time that sound has been introduced into the film without an obvious source, and Sciamma does not instantly reveal where it’s coming from. While the women stand around the fire, the singing begins, and it has an immediately disorienting effect. Marianne and Héloïse have accompanied Sophie, the house’s maid (Luàna Bajrami) because she seeks an abortion from one of the women there. Will Marianne be found out? Who cares! Sciamma is interested in far deeper issues, including the access women have and are denied to art’s liberating possibilities, and the burning desire of romance.īut back to the singing. It’s an intriguing hook for a film, but the film abandons this narrative intrigue fairly early on. Soon, both painter and subject will fall for each other. Following the death of her sister, Héloïse wants nothing to do with her mother’s plans, which forces Marianne to paint her surreptitiously. Marianne arrives by a rickety boat, engaged by the family to paint Héloïse’s portrait, which will act as a calling card for potential husbands. When a student asks her about the titular portrait, the film flashes back to the water outside a remote island, home to Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), a listless young woman whose mother is trying to marry her off. Portrait of a Lady on Fire begins with Marianne (Noémie Merlant), an art teacher in the 18 th century. And there is the film’s standout scene, about halfway through, in which a group of women’s voices coalesce around a fire, and the narrative reaches a turning point. There are two key moments: the emotional final shot, a powerful sequence set to the third movement of ‘Summer’ from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (earlier heard on harpsichord). 2īy restricting her use of music, Sciamma heightens the effect when it does make itself heard in the film. The reason why she took this approach, she notes, is simple: she wanted the audience to have the same access to music, the same access to art, as her characters. 1 Indeed, the soundtrack is entirely diegetic, consisting only of what the characters on-screen hear. “I wanted the film not to have a score, which was kind of scary because making a love story without a score is pretty challenging,” she has said of her creative choices. Music plays a central role in Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (Portrait of a Lady on Fire, 2019), director Céline Sciamma’s masterful 2019 queer period romance.
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