Portrait of a Lady on Fire

we can have a little a French lesbian yearning movie, as a treat

My friend Jasmine had sent me a bootleg a few months ago (shockingly, my local Utah multiplex did not screen Portrait of a Lady on Fire) but I waited until it dropped on Hulu last night to actually watch it.

I speak French (with an extremely Quebecois accent—“ouais” in lieu of “oui,” etc—much to the open chagrin and mockery of French People From France) and so I turned off the subtitles for a long time and then turned them back on to see what you miss, and you do not miss a lot, because it’s so atmospheric and visual, but you miss the cataclysmic intimacy of a “vous” becoming a (shocking) “tu” (I waited SO LONG for the tutoyer to happen, Grace and I were like “WHEN WILL IT HAPPEN?”), and you miss the poetry of “Mourir?” “Courir.” A very formal language allows for such gorgeous violations of that formality in a way a more informal language does not. French is the librarian with the bun and the glasses, and French is also the librarian shaking her hair down and slipping her hand into your shirt. I love it very much. The French are a little insufferable about their language, but, you know, it’s a beautiful language, they deserve to be proud of it.

I hadn’t known that the director (Céline Sciamma) and the brilliant Adèle Haenel, who plays Heloise, were formerly lovers (splitting just before filming started, my HOLY FUCK) but it’s in every frame. It’s very beautiful. If I outlive my husband (which is a joke I used to make before I became desperately concerned on a daily basis about actually meaningfully outliving my older husband) I want to eventually have a very difficult younger French wife with a large nose and dark eyebrows, and you can send me your applications to keep on file. I will dote on you, find you irritating, find you irresistible, shower you with jewels and fine silks, all of that and more. The children will adore you, I promise.

Danny wrote about the movie, and his criticisms (while still greatly enjoying the movie!) are valid and endemic in queer period movies but I myself was utterly swept away. Undone! Emotionally compromised!

It also had me singing a very beautiful song, “Wagoner’s Lad”, but inserting “Wagoner’s Lady”, which doesn’t really work musically, but fits the movie in its own way, especially when Joan Baez sings it:

Bert Jansch also does a lovely instrumental version:

And Roger McGuinn and Joan’s duet was my first, and hence most cherished:

Please watch “Portrait” and discuss it.