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.

Paris is Burning (1990)

 Welcome back, readers, for another round with the Criterion Challenge.

We're getting there. Still workshopping the name some more, but we're getting there.

With that, a happy Pride Month to those celebrating it, both just as a general courtesy and as Queer Cinema will be the theme for this month.

And to start said theme, I'm firing up the one movie that was an automatic lock for this month since as soon as the theme was locked in - the 1990 documentary Paris is Burning.

I actually watched this in the back end of last month because I have more than two films lined up this time, and because I wanted some time to really turn over this one. This is in part because, honestly, I recognize I'm an outsider on this topic. I know that's at least part of the point for a documentary like this, in its exploration of drag and ball culture, but it also means I wanted to really process thoughts on it rather than just go off the cuff.

So here goes and please bear with me.

I know I've brought this up in the past, but I need to repeat it here - the older I get, the more my attitude towards film and the idea of 'could have been' has changed. In the past, it was a sticking point - a demerit when I came out of a film feeling like it could have made a better choice and didn't (it sometimes still is, but nowhere near as often.) Lately, I'm more struck by those movies where you can see how it could have gone a safer, more traditional route to its relative detriment, and didn't.

Paris is Burning definitely falls into that latter category. Part of this is thanks to how director Jennie Livingston handles the subject matter. In a different set of hands (I'm not sure I want to say less capable as much as less aware) this movie would have played more like a travelogue - a filmmaker positioning themself as an outsider to whom the world of drag and ball culture is to be explored and findings brought back to the 'normal' world. To Livingston, however, the movie is first and foremost about the people who inhabit this culture.

To that end, Livingston herself isn't really a presence we are aware of in the movie. She is the one filming and asking the questions, but she is never seen on camera, and the main reason we know the questions being asked is because her subjects clarify them before answering. The focus is framed entirely on the people - from seasoned veterans like Dorian Corey to relative up and comers like Venus Xtravaganza, for just two examples. Ultimately, the movie becomes more focused on learning about those who are competing than about the nature of the competition itself.

That is a big part of what keeps this from feeling like the cinematic work of a tourist, for lack of a better descriptor. Livingston films this aware that she is a relative outsider - while she is an out lesbian, that is still an altogether different experience from what many of her subjects go through (contrary to what some pundits will insist, the LGBTQIA+ experience is not a monolith). Further, instead of just making it perfunctory questions about the competition only, she lets her subjects open up about their lives - the homes they came from (and, sadly, in many cases were driven from) and the new family they have found in the drag community. As Livingston herself has put it best, one of the main themes of this movie is how those interview have learned to survive in a world that is, in many cases, openly hostile to them, while keeping their dignity.

If you wind up checking out only one of the movies I've picked for this month, this should arguably be it. Nothing against the other two, which are both altogether excellent movies, but in terms of this theme, this is arguably the movie that best hits the mark. It's a reminder, at different times funny, encouraging, sobering, and heartbreaking, that under all the cultural tags and debate, it's people just trying to find a place they feel they can truly be themselves in the world.

Well, with any luck I didn't just set too high a bar for the rest of the month.

Especially because next up, I'm going to be doing something a little bit different. This next entry marks a first for this project, with a guest on for a crossover discussion.

The discussion, and subsequent writeup soon to come.

Till then!