Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma, 2019)

Adèle Haenel and Noémie Merlant in Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Cast: Noémie Merlant, Adèle Haenel, Luàna Bajrami, Valeria Golino, Christel Baras, Armande Boulanger, Guy Delamarche, Clément Bouyssou. Screenplay: Céline Sciamma. Cinematography: Claire Mathon. Production design: Thomas Grézaud. Film editing: Julien Lacheray. Music: Jean-Baptiste de Laubier, Arthur Simonini.

It isn't just the title of Céline Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire that made me think of Henry James. It's the film's delicate and subtle treatment of a Jamesean theme, the intersection of consciousnesses, and the fact that Sciamma, as James did in some of his stories, uses an artist as a vehicle for developing the theme. I also found the film something of a revelation of Sciamma's great talent after watching two of her previous films, Water Lilies (2007) and Girlhood (2014). The contemporary setting of those films necessitated a kind of documentary realism that is set aside for Portrait of a Lady on Fire, with its 18th-century setting and more rigid moral codes serving as limitations on its characters, defining their roles and allowing us to confront their responses to the limitation with clarity. It's also fascinating, I think, to compare Sciamma's film with Abdellatif Kechiche's Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013), a film heavily defined by the male gaze, while Sciamma's view of the lesbian relationship of her characters, Marianne (Noémie Merlant) and Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), is an exploration of female "looking." There are extraordinary moments that perhaps only a woman might have imagined, or imaged, throughout the film: The abortion that takes place with the maid Sophie (Luàna Bajrami) lying across the bed while a baby plays with her face; the festival that seems to be made up mostly of women, at which Héloïse's dress catches fire; Marianne leaping from the boat to rescue her paints and canvases; Marianne propping a mirror against the nude Héloïse's mons veneris so she can sketch a self-portrait on page 28 (the page number will become significant later in the film) of Héloïse's copy of Ovid, where the story of Opheus and Eurydice is told. Reviewers of the film reached a little too often and too eagerly for the word "masterpiece," an epithet that can only be applied by time, but it's certainly an extraordinary film, made so by fine performances, and by Claire Mathon's cinematography and Dorothée Guiraud's costumes, which often evoke the paintings of Chardin.

Water Lilies (Céline Sciamma, 2007)

Adèle Haenel and Pauline Acquart in Water Lilies

Cast: Pauline Acquart, Louise Blachère, Adèle Haenel, Warren Jacquin, Christel Baras, Marie Gili-Pierre, Alice de Lencquesaing, Claire Pierrat, Barbara Renard, Esther Sironneau, Jérémie Steib, Yvonne Villemaire, Christophe Vandevelde. Screenplay: Céline Sciamma. Cinematography: Crystel Fournier. Production design: Gwendel Bescond. Film editing: Julien Lacheray. Music: Jean-Baptiste de Laubier.

I admit to a certain queasiness about watching Water Lilies, with its almost too intimate exploration of the lives of teenage girls, including some nudity. Céline Sciamma of course wants us to feel that way, to make us aware of these adolescent bodies as well as the souls that inhabit them. One girl, Marie (Pauline Acquart), is skinny and awkward; another, Anne (Louise Blachère), is on the verge of being overweight; and the third, Florine (Adèle Haenel), is flat-out beautiful. All of them spend much of their time at the swimming pool, where Florine is the star of a group of synchronized swimmers, and Anne coaches a group of beginners. Marie is the hanger-on who watches the other girls with a too-eager eye. At the film's start, she and Anne are close, but as Marie becomes involved with Florine, the two drift apart. There is a pivotal boy in the ensemble, the handsome François (Warren Jacquin), whom Anne desires -- at one point she she sees him looking at her naked in the locker room; she doesn't cover up in embarrassment but is rather pleased, and begins to try to win him. But François is after Florine, who strikes a deal with Marie: She'll let Marie watch the group practicing if she'll help her sneak out of the house at night to meet with François. Eventually, a different relationship develops between Marie and Florine. Sciamma choreographs this pas de quatre well, but there's something a little too formulaic and voyeuristic about the film, which doesn't resolve itself into significance. Still, its portrait of the sexual confusion of adolescence is often achingly real.