Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a burning, passionate love story

The chemistry on screen is searing hot, the love story is passionate and burning, and it’s easily one of the best films of the year.

There’s a lot of promise in a title like Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

The play on words on Henry James’ classic novel signals that this isn’t going to be the corsetted period drama you’re familiar with.

Writer and director Celine Sciamma’s burning historical drama is so full of life, passion and emotion it threatens to overwhelm. No wonder the film won both the Screenplay award and the Queer Palm at Cannes earlier this year.

Set in 18th century Brittany, Marianne (Noemie Merlant) is a painter who, by virtue of her gender, is barred from capturing “major” art subjects such as male nudes.

Instead, she’s commissioned by a French noblewoman (Valeria Golino) to paint the portrait of her daughter Heloise (Adele Haenel), a portrait that is to be sent to an Italian man and potential husband.

There’s nothing staid about this ‘costume drama’ (Neon via AP)

Heloise, her mother warns, refuses to sit for a portrait so Marianne must come to their isolated island home off the coast of Brittany under the guise of being a companion, studying her features and then painting her in secret.

At first Marianne carries out her mission, but she and Heloise grow close and the painter is reluctant to continue the deception.

Once the mother leaves the island to go to Italy, Marianne and Heloise are left alone with a young maid, Sophie (Luana Bajrami). The three of them are like a cloistered community, left to express themselves away from the moral restrictions of male-dominated society.

Marianne and Heloise’s romance comes on with such intensity, it’s almost cathartic for the viewer. Their onscreen bond is wrapped up in layers of how they see each other as artist and subject, but also how Sciamma’s gaze foregrounds this passionate connection between two women, still a rarity in cinema.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is that rare film told with passion, urgency and from an entirely female perspective (Neon via AP)

The way Marianne and Heloise notice little details about the other – how they breathe, the way one of them bites their lip – is part of the film’s attention to how women are often not seen on screen, or in art in general.

It’s not about the idealised version seen through the distant eyes of an uninvolved, often male, artist, it’s about the truth of who they are as seen through the eyes of someone who knows.

And then there are the eyes on screen, flitting about, at each other but also not at each other. Portrait of a Lady on Fire says so much in where people are looking.

Merlant and Haenel’s chemistry is searing hot, and both actors have given remarkably eloquent, memorable performances.

Heloise is literally on fire

This film feels and looks like a grand epic, the striking blues of that Brittany sea glaring in the background among the many gorgeous tableaus Sciamma and cinematographer Claire Mathon create. The colours on the screen, the orange of the fires, the emerald green of Heloise’s duchess silk gown, are so vivid.

It might be set some 200-plus years ago but its spirit is contemporary, its urgency anchored in our current cultural moment. There is nothing staid or sepia-toned about Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

It’s also an incredibly intimate film, almost if we’re intruding on this beautiful relationship we have no right to know. But being invited into that world is exactly the point.

It was a privilege to have seen and experienced Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

Rating: 5/5

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is in cinemas on Boxing Day

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