Written by Sloane Frederick, Photo courtesy of Savannah Film Festival
Just how long are women willing to wait? How long are they willing to burn with their desire?
Celine Sciamma, director of “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” allows us to hear the siren song of a Sapphic goddess inside the locked closet (or a beautiful oceanside house between the trees) where quiet love between women is kept. In fact, it makes all romance within compulsory heterosexuality look like a head on collision. Tactless, accidental, and forceful.
What are we looking at when watching Marianne (Noemie Merlant) and Heloise (Adele Haenel) control their physical selves despite the passion thrusting through them? Marianne, the dark haired bohemian, is paid to paint a former nun about to be married, but the painting must be completed in secret. They take walks together, not saying much. Marianne takes long looks at her subject. They share their love of music, despite Heloise only having heard the organ in the convent. They study one another.
This movie alludes and even out right mentions the story of Eurydice but focuses on how long a memory lasts. In the story of Eurydice, Oprheus is permitted to bring his lover back from the underworld so long as he doesn’t look at her until they’ve both reached the sunlight. Orpheus thinks he might have been tricked and turns around to look at her. Then, Eurydice falls back into the dark abyss of the underworld. He was given instruction on how to be reunited with his lover once more. He was impatient, and reckless, and he looked. And he lost her.
For the first sixty minutes the buildup between the two women is overwhelming but so subtle. To burn all day long between daily activities. After their first walk, when Heloise asks to borrow a book, she waits at the door controlled, still, while Marianne walks into her room. I anticipated
Heloise approaching Marianne from behind, surprising her, maybe kissing her. That isn’t so. The release of tension would lackluster compared to their forming attraction, their future love. They contain themselves. Yearn throughout the day. Let love fuel them. It stands to reason these
women will long for life. Well, maybe all women long forever, quietly burning, marinating in passion for another, for a love that exists in the days leading up to one kiss. One glance. A smile.
While the the pace of the film is akin to taking a walk, that may be the point. A walk where one takes notice of the flora around them and looks up at just the right moment to see a bird flying by their head. Though falling in love might happen suddenly, our interactions with love can wait. They can make our eyes turn red and make it seem as though our head is on fire. We can sit in that flame, marinating in the inevitable pain that comes with falling in love.
