“Portrait of a Lady on Fire” is the Future of Lesbian Film
Film Still ℅ Neon
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) was released to select theatres on December 6th, 2019. After watching it, I wrote somewhat of a love letter to the film, hoping to share my affection with others. This review includes spoilers and discussion of specific moments from the film, so if you’re against that sort of thing, hold off on reading this until you have the chance to watch the film, which will be released to the public on February 14th.
In one of A Portrait of a Lady on Fire’s first memorable visuals, we’re shown a striking image of Marianne, one of the film’s leading women, sitting on the floor of her room, nude and alone, lighting a tobacco pipe with a blazing fire behind her. All we can hear is the crackle of the flames, and we’re invited to experience the satisfaction that Marianne is feeling while sitting with her body and herself. Not a man in sight; not even another character in sight — just Marianne, in her rawest form, existing not for the pleasure of another, but for the pleasure of herself and to simply get out of her wet dress that was soaked from her overseas travel.
This scene is one of many that makes this French film not just by and for women, but by and for queer women. Portrait of a Lady on Fire, written and directed by Céline Sciamma, shows the ardent and heartbreaking 18th-century love story between two women — Marianne (Noémie Merlant), a painter, and Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), a soon-to-be married woman who requires a wedding portrait. Marianne is commissioned to paint Héloïse in secret — as she at first refuses to pose for a portrait of such nature — and the rest is history: a beautiful, slow-burning and short-term romance that could be seen as a lesbian version of Call Me By Your Name.
Portrait triumphs in perfectly encapsulating the liberating form of queer desire that’s situated in the film’s repressive premise. I have to attribute this to the fact that Sciamma is a lesbian, something that is often not the case with directors of other queer films. Unlike 2013’s Blue Is The Warmest Color, a movie that’s filled with inaccurate queer sex and the director’s failure to respect the lead actresses, or even my favorite lesbian films of Thelma, The Favourite, Disobedience, and Carol, which were all directed by men, Sciamma adds to the brief list of lesbian films made by fellow queer women, riding alongside Cheryl Dunye, Dee Rees, Jamie Babbit, and Desiree Akhaven. But, Portrait differs in that it entirely centers lesbian desire and love, leaving not much room for anything else. It’s apparent through every scene, detail, and poetic line that a lesbian was behind those decisions, and furthermore, the actors themselves intimately understand queerness — at least this is the case for Adèle Haenel, the face behind Héloïse, who is also queer (and even dated the director years prior).
Upon finally watching, nervous and excited and maybe a bit aroused from the hype I saw on my Twitter feed, my film fantasies came true. I had been searching for a film such as this my entire life — where were the yearning lesbians and the female intimacy and, most importantly, the pleasure of not having to see a man for almost two whole hours? In that defining early visual of Portrait, where we see the gorgeous Noémie Merlant feeling the warmth of the fire on her naked body, I sensed that this film couldn’t be for any man, or even any straight woman. Her isolation in this scene painted the backdrop for the rest of the film, where the characters were never posing for the pleasure of a man — rather, it was for the pleasure of themselves, or more thrillingly, for the pleasure of another woman.
This profound lack of a specifically male gaze — which would assumedly creep in because the portrait was intended to be for Héloïse’s future husband — doesn’t make the act of looking nonexistent, though; as painter and muse, it’s impossible to escape this age-old trope. Sciamma instead subverts the classic male painter-female muse dynamic, as seen in the foundational John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, discussing how traditional, European paintings of women, particularly nudes, are rarely portraying women as themselves but as a product of male desire. Instead of falling down this rabbit hole, the film uses Marianne’s required gaze to be, to put it lightly, really gay, rather than objectifying. If you’re a queer woman, you must be all too familiar with the lesbian glance — that gay look that holds even more power than a physical touch, signaling recognition, validation, sexual tension, or a combination of the three, in the only way that’s acceptable in certain contexts. Portrait takes this yearning lesbian glance and pairs it perfectly with the female gaze to produce at least an hour of seeing and being seen.
When the two women first interact, Marianne follows her muse out the door, and Héloïse begins running, her blonde hair swaying in the wind with Marianne’s eyes glued to her hair, attempting to keep up. Héloïse then turns back, revealing her face for the first time, and abruptly stops, telling the painter she has always dreamt of running. In the first moment of their shared glance, it’s not just Marianne that is studying Héloïse’s features, presumably so she can paint her — Héloïse practically invites her to look, and even playfully looks back, implying that she also dreams of sharing this mutual, queer gaze. Their chemistry slowly treads on with silent scenes of Marianne nervously looking at Héloïse, then away, then Héloïse doing the same. We’re forced to wonder: are Marianne’s hidden glances only happening because she is required to know every detail of Héloïse’s better than her own? Or, are the glances a signal of something more, maybe of lust, of longing, even of love? The painter’s mastery of Héloïse’s features could be what sparked this lust; the film reveals how Marianne is hyper-focused on her ears, her hands, her hair, her inability to smile. Her attention traces back to an idea from Lady Bird, when Sister Sarah Joan asks the titular character: “Don’t you think they are the same thing? Love and attention?” Portrait blurs the two, revealing that a budding romance between a painter and a muse could be shown more beautifully through those glances that say far more than words.
Héloïse choosing to return that gaze is what subverts the artist-muse trope; we gradually see the mistress choosing to look back and react to her unknowing glances. While the male gaze only gives pleasure to the man looking, Héloïse’s coy return of her eyes shows that the two women both receive this pleasure, both of seeing and of knowing that they’re being seen in return. When Marianne sketches a sleeping Héloïse one night, we understand that it is solely for the painter’s pleasure and not for her commissioned portrait. But we also understand that this pleasure is mutual when Héloïse wakes up and reveals she wishes to be seen, because instead of moving away from her gaze, she doesn’t budge, except for looking her in the eyes and leaving her with a knowing smile.
This depiction of mutual yearning, where Marianne and Héloïse are equal in their affection even with their different backgrounds, is mostly painted through the slow-burn scenes that preface their first sexual encounter. During a painting session, in their height of sexual tension, Marianne tells Héloïse, showing how attention and love can be the same, every detail she notices upon observing her muse, like how she bites her lips when she’s embarrassed. Seemingly a declaration of her affection for the woman, Héloïse does the same when she artfully says: “If you look at me, who do I look at? When you don’t know what to say, you touch your forehead. When you lose control, you raise your eyebrows. And when you’re troubled, you breathe through your mouth.” While it’s already evident that their gaze has been mutual, this interaction proves that their opposite positions still make themselves vulnerable to falling in love with each other in the most equal of terms, resounding a profound quote by Agnes Varda: “The first feminist gesture is to say: ‘Ok. They’re looking at me. But I’m looking at them.’ The act of deciding to look, of deciding that the world is not defined by how people see me, but how I see them.” It forces us to question the role of all muses in this dynamic; do they also notice these intimate details of the artist, just as the painter notices theirs? It gives us a glimpse of how Marianne and Héloïse’s romance will be one of entire reciprocity, something that is both lacking in the traditional artist’s gaze and representations of lesbian romances. But more blatantly, it shows the shared sexual tension between the two, maybe the reason why the film gained widespread popularity amongst every queer woman who has at some point or another felt this tension with another woman without knowing what move to make next.
Because damn, not only was this movie super gay, but so obviously geared towards queer film fans. Even just all the instances of glancing made lesbians worldwide draft copious tweets about yearning. Queer women are now analogizing the painter-muse dynamic as the new top-bottom. King Princess’s lyrics of “staring at my fingers while I talk to you” and that common lesbian first date trope of comparing each other’s hand sizes were represented in the film’s emphasis on hands. Some of the women’s quotes resembled sentences from the letters of 18th century romantic friendships, aka secret female lovers who didn’t have the language or access to actually call themselves lesbians. Héloïse’s early line of “In solitude, I felt the liberty you spoke of. But I also felt your absence,” felt like it came straight out of these letters. It looked like the 1700s version of queer flirting, and I, among many others, could only dream of a woman I was crushing on to tell me that same poetic phrase.
Their first kiss, hidden behind French cliffs, eventually prompts their first time having sex, where Marianne lays her head on Héloïse’s shoulder and then turns around for Héloïse to trace her fingers across Marianne’s neck, whispering “Do all lovers feel like they’re inventing something?” I know for a fact that this line is what caused widespread lesbian yearning — the mass amounts of queer women saying this movie made them text their ex had to have been specifically from this encounter. And have I continued to text all my crushes about this film? Absolutely.
Sciamma’s portrayal of non-exploitative lesbian sex may also be the reason for such queer appraisal — knowing that a lesbian was behind these cinematic decisions, although never showing actual sex, makes them all the more impactful. Héloïse splays her nude body next to Marianne’s with her hairy armpits in full view, not only nodding at the historic time period, but also the inherent queerness of this moment. The camera zooms on them kissing, focusing on a trickle of spit that follows their lips rather than their naked bodies. Marianne even spits water into Héloïse’s mouth, reminding me of the queerly intimate scene of Rachel Weisz spitting into Rachel McAdam’s mouth in Disobedience. When they’re in bed together, it’s difficult to remember the world outside their brief love affair, making their very real romance feel like a fantasy, or arguably a painting.
In one of their last scenes together, Marianne draws a small sketch of Héloïse, and Héloïse says, “You can produce that image to infinity.” We sadly know their lesbian fantasy is nearing an end as Héloïse asks for a drawing of Marianne herself so she has some way of seeing her lover once they part ways. Marianne draws herself in the pages of a book, using Héloïse’s nude figure to prop up a mirror that she uses for reference. Both women then have images of their naked lovers that will last to infinity, hopefully ensuring that the two never forget their sensational romance, even when forced apart.
Our lesbian fantasy sadly comes to a close when Marianne hears that Héloïse’s mother is returning the following day, putting an expiration date on their short-lived romance. The dread continues when we’re viscerally shocked by the image of a man, the first we have seen the entire film, apart from the crew members of the boat Marianne arrives on in the beginning. We’re disappointed to know that from this point forward, Héloïse’s beauty will be taken in by men, and that, more tragically, Héloïse and Marianne can no longer share that mutual gaze and desire for each other — all they have now are those images they drew in bed together and the memories of their queer romance.
Yet, even in the film’s tragic ending moments, Sciamma invites us to remember their love story instead of fixating on the film’s heartbreaking fate. When Marianne sees her in the painting of Héloïse and her child, we should focus on the detail of Héloïse’s finger placed on page 28 of the book on her lap, nodding to the same page number that Marianne drew on while creating her self-portrait for her lover, rather than knowing that Héloïse cannot look back in this moment. Instead of agonizing over the ending scene of Héloïse crying at the opera, again knowing that she fails to return Marianne’s gaze, we can at least feel comfort in understanding that the artist got to see her one last time. These final scenes may portray Portrait as not painting a queer utopia at all; it may be instead pointing to how a patriarchal society limits the possibility of such queer love from living on and that it could only work within the confines of a remote island where no man intrudes. However, knowing how easy it is to instead remember their short-lived romance is what makes the film so much more redeeming than others that emphasize queer heartbreak and suffering.
In one of their final fleeting moments, Marianne tells Héloïse: “Don’t regret. Remember.” She asks her lover to only view these cherished moments as formative and to store them in a special part of her heart when the two reminisce on their last few weeks together. Marianne then asks her lover, and us, to focus on the present when she artfully says, “When you asked if I had known love, I could tell the answer was yes. And that it was now.” Héloïse remembers, and of course the audience also remembers — how could we forget any detail from this beautiful film? While this almost-goodbye scene could be the most heartbreaking, Marianne’s request nods to the painting of the romance the two women created rather than its imminent end. Just like any painting, their love story could last centuries, transcending the two week span of their affair. Marianne asks us to remember this painting, and Céline Sciamma asks us to keep this film close to our hearts, paving the way for the future of queer cinema, for lesbians to be at the forefront of film, for queer desire to finally be prioritized and celebrated on the screen.
About the Author
Natalie Geisel (she/her) is a senior at The George Washington University studying women’s, gender, and sexuality studies with minors in English and communication. Her love of writing sprouted from starting her fashion blog in high school, and her current written work focuses on topics of LGBTQ+ content, culture, and identity. Launching and managing Camp Thirlby was out of interest in intersecting gender and sexuality into the world of youth and wellness, hoping to add marginalized voices, like her own queer one, to an underrepresented community. When she’s not writing, she spends her spare time at dance rehearsal, attending local indie shows in the DC area, or finding the best cafes that serve oat milk. She’s passionate about inclusive sex education and sustainable fashion and thinks everyone should be, too. You can view all of her written work on her website.
