Good Lady Story Year continues, unabated. And it couldn’t have come at a better time what with “Gentleman Jack” finishing its first season last night and our Swoony Lesbian Historical Romance options suddenly lacking. At this year’s Cannes Film Festival the “buzziest” film was queer French female writer-director Céline Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady On Fire.”
The description is as such:
The French-language film stars Noémie Merlant as Marianne, an 18th-century artist commissioned to paint a portrait of eligible bachelorette Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) to be used in pursuit of the perfect suitor. The problem is that Héloïse has no intention of marrying, and therefore refuses to sit for the portrait, forcing Marianne to pose as her lady’s maid to gain her trust.And, according to reports, she gains more than just her trust as this is being described as a “queer love story.” So it’s kind of like, “Won’t you come up to see my etchings?” But make it gay.
Now, I wasn’t sure I was familiar with Sciamma’s work until I looked her up on IMDB and, lo and behold, she wrote and directed both the 2007 teen lesbian drama “Water Lilies” and 2011 trans/non-binary drama “Tomboy.” In short, she’s the real deal.
“Portrait of a Lady on Fire” took home the Queer Palm (the first time a female director had won the feature honor) and Best Screenplay overall.
The clips are light on the lady-loving-lady stuff. But in tone, and style the film certainly piques my interest. I mean, is this new weak-in-the-knees feeling I’m feeling what all those straight ladies who won’t stop going on about “Outlander” get to feel like all the time? Because, damn.
For added meta, Céline Sciamma and Adèle Haenel used to date. So this is a movie about an artist falling in love with her subject, made by a director who used to be in love with the actress playing that subject.
ReplyDelete(French media are pretty good with respecting people's privacy, but I think they broke up. But they certainly were together for a number of years, and Adèle Haenel thanked her partner by name when she won a Cesar in 2015.)
I remember that I watched Water Lilies but I don’t remember much about it
ReplyDeleteHmmm
But Gentleman Jack OMG
When I read the article headline, i thought surely you are writing about the S1 finale of Gentleman Jack because, OMG this was real and it as over 200 years ago!
ReplyDeleteHave you watched Harlots yet?? Perfect time to binge the first 2 seasons before the third starts July 10! Historical gays for the win.
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