Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Portrait of a Lady on Fire premiered at Cannes where it won The Queer Palm and the best screenplay award. I managed to see it recently when it premiered at TIFF. That was probably the optimal way to see it. Portrait of a Lady on Fire is certainly a film festival type of movie. While I have very few actual critiques of the movie, one’s personal enjoyment of it will probably be based on how much you like slow, deliberate movies that enjoy silence as much as dialogue.

The movie follows a love story that develops between a painter named Marianne and Héloïse, the woman whose portrait she has been commissioned to paint. Héloïse is averse to having her portrait painted as it will be sent to her unknown fiance as a prelude to their marriage. As such, Marianne must paint Héloïse in secret while acting as her companion. While their initial relationship is distant, the two women slowly connect. Once Héloïse’s mother leaves the house for a series of days, Marianne and Héloïse’s relationship kicks into high gear.

Like any movie, the vast majority of people who see Portrait of a Lady on Fire won’t be able to do so in theatres. And that is something of a shame. This is a stunningly beautiful movie. It was clearly made to be seen on a big screen. The cinematography is absolutely enchanting. Many shots clearly take inspiration from art from the the period and look like paintings themselves. There’s not a lot of WLW movies that really deserve to be seen on a big screen. Even the good ones tend to be held up by story over visuals. Portrait of a Lady on Fire is the exception to this. If you have a chance to see it in theatres, you should.

Initially, I was confused about how this movie won best screenplay at Cannes because Portrait enjoys showing silence between characters as much as speech. But as the movie went on, I understood why. Every line of dialogue in this film and the story overall has been polished to perfection. There’s clear thought and intent with every line that is spoken. A frequent complaint I have about movies is that their scripts felt like a first or second draft. This is not the case with Portrait of a Lady on Fire. This is wholly polished script. Far from feeling like a first draft, it feels like Portrait only started shooting once the script had gone through its 50th draft.

In general, the major praise I have about this movie is how thought-out and deliberate every choice seemed. There is no aspect of this movie that feels half-assed. Every line of dialogue, every camera angle, every look the actresses give each other is clearly extensively thought out. While the movie does run two hours, not one second of it feels unnecessary or like padding. That was just the exact amount of time needed to tell this story.

My only real complaint is that we never see the titular portrait of a lady on fire being painted. We see its inspiration and the portrait upon completion. However, we never see the scene in which Marianne actually paints it. The main reason this makes me sad is that I hoped that there would be a seen where she shows Héloïse this portrait. I think Héloïse would have really adored it and it could’ve been a great scene that plays into the film’s theme about the gaze.

Objectively, Portrait of a Lady on Fire is good. Great, even. Significantly better critics than me all agree this movie is a masterpiece and I’m not going to dispute that. But it’s rare that we get a WLW movie with this much critical acclaim or artistic merit. Definitely if you’re even vaguely pretentious you probably have to see it.

Overall rating: 9.5/10

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