Portrait de la jeune fille en feu/Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

Everything about Potrait de la jeune fille en feu should feel cliche. It is a romance between two women of two separate classes in the late 18th century in an age where they had little to no power over their own destiny regardless of their class, yet writer director Celine Sciamma's story finds a compelling centre which is riveting. Perhaps like the painting referred to in the title, a truly lovely piece by artist Hélène Delmaire, the film captures a searing passion within a fairly familiar scene.

At first Portrait felt to me like many of the queer films I saw as a younger film goer seeking out representation in a sea of hetero-normative movies. Forbidden love across cultural divides, doomed to be separated by the end because "that's how things were" blah blah blah. They even work in a a feminist touchstone as the pair help a young pregnant servant end her pregnancy, again shuffling off the expectations of their womanhood. But despite how loaded with predictability the story was, as I watched I couldn't help but be overwhelmed with the loves story.

Stars Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel, often through quite a bit of intense staring, infuse their characters' falling in love with a very palpable passion, so much I felt my heart racing at times. Sciamma eschews showy camera work for a more personal and quite beautiful approach to filming her star crossed lovers. Each frame is quite gently beautiful, making us fall in love as well. By the moment in the poster, when Héloïse's dress accidentally catches on fire for a moment, we have built up a very lived fire inside of her, perhaps a recognizable relatable fire, and the whole things comes together. And the ends with a beautifully long but heartfelt moment that was breathtaking. 

So despite how many times we've seen this before, and despite how much we knew what was going to happen, Portrait inspires us and ends up being quite lovely.

Portrait de la jeune fille en feu/Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Starring: Noémie Merlant, Adèle Haenel

Writer/Director: Céline Sciamma