Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

 I promised you guys a third feature for the Criterion Challenge, and we're coming close to the wire, but here it is!

A heads-up - as a rule, I've tried to anchor these entries on a particular point or aspect of the film. It became a good way to vary the writeups rather than do every one by the same format. I bring this up because, in the case of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, I realized the point I wanted to come at it from is the movie's ending.

So if you haven't seen it yet and would wish to avoid spoilers, I'd recommend putting this one aside for now and going to watch the film. It's worth seeing and this will be here when you get back.

Still here? Okay. Anyone who's not seen it has been warned, and hopefully will still seek it out.

This was an interesting revisit for me. The last time I'd seen this, it was in theaters - the last weekend before everything locked down due to COVID. This isn't really related to my main point, I just wanted to note it and use it as a context note.

Since that first viewing, that final scene has stuck with me. It was the moment I was both most curious, and most apprehensive, to revisit after over a year and see if it was as good as I remembered or if time and memory had overextended it for me.

I'm pleased to see it's held up well, and, if anything, I feel like I appreciate it more this time around.

For anyone who hasn't seen the movie and decided 'Spoilers be damned!' or those who don't remember as well, a quick refresher -

The bulk of the movie recounts the arrival of Marianne (Noémie Merlant) to a remote island where she's been commissioned to paint a portrait of the soon to be married Héloïse (Adèle Haenel.) In the relative isolation, spending much of their time together, the two women fall in love. Ultimately, however, they are unable to avoid the larger world - Héloïse still has to go ahead with the marriage, even as it hurts both women to have to end what they have together.

Having gone their separate ways, Marianne recalls two times since then that she saw Héloïse. The first in the form of a portrait, in which the depicted woman left a visible clue to her past romance. The second at a concert years later, unknown to Héloïse. This is the moment that stuck with me - the performance being from Vivaldi's Four Seasons, a piece Marianne previously played for her. As the song plays, we hold on Héloïse, watching the performance entirely in Haenel's non-verbal expressions as she's overcome with emotions remembering what she had with Marianne.

It's a shot that's simple on paper, but powerful and beautiful to watch played out.

Rewatching it, the scene resonated for me even more care of an observation from another conversation with Jamie (hey, her perspective has been a big help this month.) That regarding how the ending feels in the larger history of queer cinema - most notably with regards to the infamous concept known as 'bury your gays.'

This refers to the long, checkered tendency for cinematic depictions of queer relationships to ultimately end tragically with one or both parties dead, institutionalized, or similarly having left that part of their life behind.

This is also part of why La Cage's earlier depiction of Renato and Albin was so surprising in how it bucked against type, especially for the late 70's.

As for Portrait, I have to admit, a part of me did briefly wonder that first time if this film was going to go with the more common BYG trope (anyone who's seen the trailers can see where that feeling would come from.)

Instead we get this ending. Yeah, it's not conventionally happy - ultimately Marianne and Héloïse can't be together as a consequence of the larger world at the time - but it's still a push back against the trope. Héloïse is married, but she hasn't fallen out of love with Marianne. In fact, the portrait and the concert show she has kept those feelings alive, just as the framing of the flashbacks show Marianne has kept Héloïse in her heart as well.

It's an ending that was powerful to me the first time, and it resonated even more looked at in that larger context.

The whole movie is well worth the watch, but it's those final few minutes especially that have, and will likely continue to, stay with me.

Whew. That was a lot more than I initially expected to say for one scene. What can I say? It was that good for me.

This brings Pride Month to a close here and just in time to keep rolling into July - where I'll be celebrating the Fourth in a suitably questionable fashion with two films that dig into the darker corners of the American dream.

Till then.