Birds of Prey

Céline Sciamma began with a trio of films about adolescents navigating through various phases of puberty, learning all on their own how to find their own identities (and genders). Among these films are some of the finest performances from non-professional actors I’ve ever seen.

     Yet without detracting from the quality of Water Lillies (2007, Sciamma), Tomboy (2011, Sciamma), and Girlhood (2014, Sciamma), after seeing Sciamma’s latest release, they resemble something like a sound check in preparation of what follows.

     Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019, Sciamma) is a period chamber piece romantic drama that sublimely invokes the very essence of our individual responses to art through its many forms—specifically from the perspective of woman, as both subject and agent of the feminine gaze.

     The best thing about Portrait of a Lady on Fire is that it made me see through the point of view of someone else—the other—and adapt my perception to theirs. And what makes Portrait of a Lady on Fire so thoroughly feminine is its gentleness. But also, formally speaking, the bonfire set piece is the core of the film; and what’s so transcendent is the way it becomes the language of cinema. Images say things without words. The women’s choir expresses emotions we share with the characters on screen. That sequence is art. It’s isolated from all around it narratively. It explains everything.

     Another motif that resonates profoundly is the repetition of images. The recurring portrait is continuously abandoned, modified, reconsidered, resurrected, destroyed, and yet again repeated. Portrait of a Lady on Fire is both artistic and speaks of the subject of art, expansively, reflexively, and conclusively.

     I cannot say enough about how much I enjoyed this movie. There’s so much to take from it. And some stuff I’m still wondering about. Like, there’s a scene where a housemaid gets an abortion and an infant frolics innocently and helplessly beside her face as it’s happening. Easily one of the coolest movies set during the eighteenth century since Barry Lyndon (1975, Stanley Kubrick) and Marie Antoinette (2006, Sofia Coppola).