Yes, I have already written my piece on “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” HERE but I got the chance to see the film for the third time and I have even more thoughts so here we go. Also, this article contains SPOILERS.
Portrait seems like a fairly simple movie because it’s minimalistic, clean — the number of locations and actors is limited, the shots are stunning and perfectly framed, no background music to overwhelm the senses, a scene departs at just the right moment. And yet I unravel new layers with each viewing, the lens with which I interpret the film changes but not in a way that disregards the previous readings; more so in a way that Portrait is saying multiple things at once as it flows with its slow, steady rhythm. Perhaps that’s why it feels like everything in this story has a meaning, is there for a reason. As a viewer, I was given the luxury of time to unpack Portrait of a Lady on Fire. And time is crucial to this movie.
There’s this line Héloïse says after Marianne paints her for the first time that has struck me, like many other lines, really, but this one especially. They’re arguing and Héloïse accuses Marianne of shallowness, of artifice in feeling; the portrait lacks soul because it follows ideals, rules, conventions. In turn, Marianne blames Héloïse for the lack of emotional delivery — whatever she means to say gets lots in ephemerality (Your presence is made up of fleeting moments that may lack truth).
To which Héloïse replies: Not everything is fleeting. Some feelings are deep.
It’s a line that makes you pause because it’s obvious Héloïse is saying two things at once. Her words are tinted with her own experience, her feelings. We, the audience, knowing Marianne is here to paint Héloïse’s portrait and then leave, acknowledging the time constraints, the circumstances which are fleeting, we understand that what doesn’t last isn’t necessarily shallow or insignificant by nature. Even ephemerality can be profound.
They know each other for only a couple of weeks but what they have transcends time.
And that made me stop and wonder — well, how do they transcend time? We are reminded of its passing constantly: the countess mentioning the number of days in which she will return after Marianne scratches the first portrait and promises to paint another; clear distinctions of today, tomorrow, the time of day; Héloïse buying the drug from a woman at the bonfire, it’s said to slow down time; Marianne’s last night on the island, I feel like I’ve wasted so much time. The passage of time is tangible and ever-present, even our main characters are aware of it; time like an ache in itself.
In the middle of it, there’s a shot of a bouquet of flowers Sophie embroiders in the kitchen while Marianne is pouring wine and Héloïse is chopping vegetables. The moment feels carefree and yet there’s something poignant about it.
Just a few days later (when the countess returns) we see the same bouquet now withered (the death of something fleeting which was Marianne’s stay on the island) but then the camera pans out to Sophie’s embroidery hoop where the flowers are still lovely and in bloom.
That’s how they transcend time — through art.
It begins even before Marianne is done with the first portrait. There’s an old piano in her chamber and when Héloïse asks her to describe orchestra music (she’s never heard it in her life), Marianne is unable to. So she sits down at the piano and presses down a few keys just to try it out and Héloïse stands by her side and asks, even before Marianne has the chance to properly start playing, Is it merry? (C’est joyeux?) Marianne says, it’s not merry but it’s lively (ce n’est pas joyeux mais c’est vivant).
This line, to me, describes the movie as a whole: some feelings are deep but Marianne leaves in the end and it’s not by any means a happy or a merry ending but that’s not the point. The experience that is alive matters more than any other because it endures. Emotional richness is what remains, undefined by its happiness but possibly defined by its sadness.
Art preserves and articulates what is difficult for us to convey in our daily life. It takes fleetingness and transforms it into eternity. It’s Horace saying, exegi monumentum aere perennius (I have created a monument more lasting than bronze). Artists seek immortality through art. They seek depth and understanding and liveliness because art means remembrance. Art means Sappho saying someone will remember us / I say / even in another time.
This is what Héloïse and Marianne want: Don’t regret. Remember. They immortalize one another and their experiences through art: Marianne paints Héloïse’s wedding portrait(s) and draws Sophie’s abortion, the three of them reliving the moment in the warmth of Marianne’s bedchamber; she draws a miniature of Héloïse’s portrait so she can put it in a pendant (Héloïse says: you can reproduce that image to infinity — gaze is remembrance, the more you look at someone the more they’re imprinted in your memory but even memory fades and that’s why she adds, after a while, you’ll see her when you think of me). Art is faulty in its reproduction of human emotion but it’s there to remind us of our aliveness. So Marianne proposes to paint herself on a page of Héloïse’s book (page 28). Years later, when Héloïse gets her portrait taken with her daughter she holds open the book just enough for the page number to be visible, like a secret: this is how I remember you. This is how I keep us alive.
Art in Portrait of a Lady on Fire proves to transcend time and distance and human understanding. It’s not only Marianne’s paintings but Sophie’s embroidery, the strange, alluring song the women sing at the bonfire, the myth Héloïse reads aloud one evening. It touches and caresses qualities within us that are unutterable. It remains years and centuries later and that’s how we stay alive, how we make sure we remember one another, how we pass down legacies and stories and, most importantly, emotions. Art is the greatest monument of feeling humankind is capable of.
Héloïse encompasses it all, every message this movie carries, in the last 30 seconds which are forever seared into my memory. Marianne sees Héloïse in the auditorium but Héloïse doesn’t see her. The orchestra breaks into Vivaldi’s Summer and Héloïse breathes heavily and Marianne’s words ring in the back of my head, ce n’est pas joyeux mais c’est vivant. Perhaps Héloïse remembers those exact words and we see her trying and almost forcing herself to smile despite the tears in something akin to defiance as if to say: we were happy. Almost as if to spite Marianne’s words, trying to find a semblance of joy in the melody. Or perhaps she laughs in remembrance of the deep happiness she felt but her expression eventually falls, struck with what she’s left behind which is: that’s all in the past and she’s here alone. She didn’t get to keep that, whatever it was, in its purest form.
But what she did get to keep was a memory (was art) through which she says, I was alive. I am alive. You and I were and are and will be alive.
Even, at last, Marianne and Héloïse are connected through art. And if art is immortal, then the feelings expressed through it can be immortal, as well.
