The woman in the painting is Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), with whom Marianne had a passionate affair during several days spent together in remote isolation. For most of its slow-moving yet thrillingly urgent running time, “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” leads us through each step of that fateful brief encounter. Héloïse, who for mysterious reasons was recently brought home from a convent, has no desire to marry and refuses to sit for a portrait. Immediately, then, Marianne and Héloïse’s relationship is charged with an undercurrent of suspicion that Sciamma will spend the next two hours carefully dismantling. Adèle Haenel in “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” (Lilies Films)In “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” looking — and, no less importantly, seeing — becomes a crucial, even radical, act.

Source: Los Angeles Times December 05, 2019 18:56 UTC