Portrait de la jeune fille en feu
Porträt einer jungen Frau in Flammen
Desire defines the position of a subject in relation to others and themselves, it always depends on a symbolic order that both organizes and limits it. To show the desire felt by one woman for another in the last decades of the 18th century in France, where the two lovers also come from different classes, meticulous work is required to reconstruct the epoch, work that is less about costumes and pieces of furniture than minimal gestures and behavioral details that don’t belong to our times. What happens between a painter struggling to make a space for herself in a masculine universe and the daughter of a countess who must prepare herself for marriage with a man she doesn’t know? It is at once prodigious and manages to avoid the usual male gaze, as can be seen in how the two main characters grow ever closer as one paints the portrait of the other. This seduction culminates in an enigmatic collective scene close to the sea, in almost complete darkness, where the women channel their joy through singing, in absolute freedom, in the middle of the night. (Roger Koza)
With the VIENNALE-TRAILER 2019: AI
In the presence of Adèle Haenel.
No tickets for the opening gala on October 24 at 7:30pm
- Noémie Merlant - Marianne
- Adèle Haenel - Héloïse
- Luàna Bajrami - Sophie
- Valeria Golino - Gräfn
- Céline Sciamma
- Claire Mathon
- Valérie Deloof
- Daniel Sobrino
- Julien Sicart
- Julien Lacheray
- Musik Baptiste de Laubier
- Arthur Simonini
- Thomas Grezaud
- Dorothée Guiraud
mk2 Films