Get Your Reps In: “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” Smolders With Doomed Passion

What to see at Portland’s repertory theaters.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (IMDB)
By Chance Solem-Pfeifer

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

Like so many great romances, Portrait of a Lady on Fire is the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object.

Sound a little aggro for a stately French period piece? Rewatch director Céline Sciamma’s neo-classic now five years after its release—at the Hollywood Theatre on Nov. 18—and double-check.

Marianne (Noémie Merlant) is kind of the ultimate badass, no? It’s the late 1700s, and she’s taken over her father’s portraiture business and ferries to a rustic island where she’ll paint the daughter of a wealthy family. Marianne is introduced to us leaping into the frigid sea to save her canvases, hauls her crates up a cliff face, smokes her pipe nude in front of the fireplace, and then raids the kitchen all in the first 10 minutes.

Then, there’s Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), the enigmatic daughter who refuses even to sit for her portrait until she falls in love with Marianne. All this stubbornness when, in fact, Héloïse has the most paintable face on planet earth. Haenel’s green eyes pierce like sabers. Her right eyebrow is constantly arched in incredulity. Her expression seems to exist only at the poles of knowing smile and wrathful pout.

The irony and symmetry of Portrait is that it’s Marianne’s job to scrutinize Héloïse in crafting her likeness, but her subject gazes back with even greater ferocity. Undoubtedly, looking is the film’s main theme. To stare unblinkingly at miraculous love and its inevitable end enshrines those forces forever as your own—and makes a poet of both the lover and the viewer. Hollywood Theatre, Nov. 19.

ALSO PLAYING:

5th Avenue: Apples (2020), Nov. 15-17. Academy: My Own Private Idaho (1991), Nov. 15–21. Moonstruck (1987), Nov. 15–21. 10 to Midnight (1983), Nov. 15, 16, 20 and 21. Cinema 21: Caligula: The Ultimate Cut (1979), Nov. 15. Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Nov. 16. Clinton: Prague Nights (1969), Nov. 13. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Nov. 16. Chasing Amy (2023), Nov. 17. Hollywood: Ghost World (2001), Nov. 14. Tomorrow: Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Nov. 16. Koyaanisqatsi (1982), Nov. 17. Ratatouille (2007), Nov. 17.

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