Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

Saw Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019).  I really enjoyed it.  It was so swooning and sweet.  The film follows a lesbian love affair between a noblewoman who is about to be married off to some man she's never met and her portrait painter who is hired to give a little sneak peek of the noblewoman to her future husband (a reciprocal portrait of the husband for the future wife is never spoken of and probably would not be created).  At the start of the film, the painter is instructed to paint the portrait in secret however: the noblewoman doesn't want the wedding to happen and does not want the portrait to happen and so we have a scenario custom-built for mutual seduction: the artist must steal glances at the noblewoman's face, must memorize her features, must coax out blushes and smiles and long gazes into eyes.  Delicious!

The film introduces us to the portrait as a kind of doom.  It signals the transition from single girlhood to wife-hood and is not a portrait for her, but for her husband; a kind of advertisement for the bride-to-be, intended to please an anonymous man.  The characters reclaim the image of the noblewoman over the course of the film, not only by subverting the relationship with her future husband, but by involving the  noblewoman (the subject of the painting) in the creation of it.  It is no longer an advertisement but a statement.

The film also allows the noblewoman to reclaims her image by connecting it to the myth of Orpheus, specifically the moment when Orpheus turns to look at his dead wife, Euridice, dooming her to a second death.  Perhaps it was not weakness that made him look, the film suggests, perhaps he chose to keep the image, the memory of her instead of keeping Euridice herself.  "Perhaps it was Euridice who said to turn around." Suggests the noblewoman.

The film is so pretty, so gentle and nice.  Everyone is frank and friendly with each other.  There are no judgmental, scheming servants nor self-righteous priests or relatives or any of the usual avatars of conventional morality.  The central tragedy of the film is we viewers know that these two women who love each other so intensely cannot end up together.  They know this too and they must find a meaning for their love story which doesn't just leave it as a tragedy.  The film is so uplifting, even as it makes you cry.