I always pay close attention to a film’s final shot. The choices a director makes in the last moments of their movie can often be the difference between long-lasting resonance and a quick fade from memory. One of my favorites is from John Mackenzie’s crime drama The Long Good Friday (1980), in which poor Bob Hoskins is about to get snuffed out. A similar shot appears at the end of Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, minus the imminent death. What ties them together is that a full range of the emotional spectrum runs across the actor’s faces just before the film abruptly ends. With no words, we can see the breadth of the human experience on a single face over a very short amount of time. It’s a striking visual that is very hard to forget.
Even factoring in the period hair, makeup, and costuming, Portrait of a Lady on Fire is still as minimalist a film as you’re likely to see all year. Taking place on a secluded island somewhere in late-18th-century Brittany, one might expect pomp and circumstance to be a primary feature, but Sciamma dials back any aristocratic airs and replaces them with cleverly paced dialogue and an eerily haunted aura. Visually, Portrait of a Lady on Fire calls up vast oil-painted seaside landscapes of the era mixed with the stuffiness and claustrophobia of portrait painting that never fails to impress. This unique combination of motifs is a stunning encapsulation that feeds the tragic plot while still allowing plenty of room for it to breathe and live – while it can.
Marianne (Noémie Merlant) is a painter who’s been commissioned to paint the portrait of Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), a reluctant bride-to-be. Héloïse refuses to sit for the portrait as she’s unhappy about the arranged marriage she’s being forced into. Marianne pretends to be a hired companion, spending her days with Héloïse, memorizing her features so she can paint them by night. A bond eventually forms between the two which quickly and recklessly evolves into love. Their future, however, is controlled by the inflexible standards of the time, which dooms their relationship from the start.
As the story unfolds, the burgeoning happiness felt by Marianne and Héloïse is blanketed by an ever-increasing shadow spurred by the reality of their situation. Marianne experiences ghostly visions that eventually end in the fulfillment of these realities – a fulfillment that should come as no surprise but somehow does. It’s impossible not to root for the young lovers, even though we know their love can’t possibly last. The sustained mixed ambiance of hope and ruin is quite an experience.
Then there’s the wonderful third act that culminates in that beautiful final shot. While not offering a redemption in the strictest of senses, Portrait of a Lady on Fire at least offers a warm validation and recognition that history is full of all sorts of mischaracterizations and unfounded assumptions about the nature of love and romance through the ages. For such a sparse film with such a specific setting, Portrait of a Lady on Fire has a hell of a lot to say about the rigid and outdated moral standards that still seem to permeate modern culture.
James is a writer, record collector, wrestling nerd, and tabletop gamer living with his family in Asheville, North Carolina. He is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the North Carolina Film Critics Association, and contributes to The Daily Orca, Razorcake Magazine, Mountain Xpress, and Asheville Movies.