How to Retell a Classic: A Review of “Portrait of a Lady on Fire”

The desire to be loved is one that everyone relates to, from the adolescent neurotically checking their messages to the teacher searching for validation from their students to the divorcee hesitantly throwing themselves back into the dating pool. The human desire to love—and to be loved—burns deeply within all of us.

And so the stories that have withstood the test of time—classics that we work to reinvent with each era—are love stories. Think: Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella and Prince Charming, Elizabeth and Lord Darcy. Each of these couples have had movie after movie retelling their story, placing them in different settings and altering its vernacular and styles, but the story is engraved into our hearts so the message withstands the whirlwind of change. A good retelling preserves the original message and adds a fresh understanding of the story. An excellent example of this is the French historical romance film “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” which effectively retells the timeless tale of Orpheus and Eurydice.

Disregarding this emotive remake of this Greek myth, “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” would still be an excellent movie. Directed by Céline Sciamma, the film is set in 18th century France. A young painter named Marianne (Noemie Marlant) is commissioned to paint the portrait of a woman, Héloise (Adèle Haenel). Héloise is a reluctant, soon-to-be bride and notoriously refuses to sit and pose for a painting. As a result, Marianne is forced to paint Héloise without her knowing, using their time together to memorize fragments of Héloise that when put together, will create a complete portrait.

Cinematographer Claire Mathon refracts Sciamma’s minimalist style so that like Marianne, we are forced to piece together the story. The quiet camerawork leaves an intimate view of the characters, enabling the nuanced performances of Marlant and Haenel to breathe a poetic quality to the film itself.

The film is quiet and poised, relying on the viewers’ attentiveness—without the crutch of aggressive dialogue or elaborate costumes. We orbit three women: Marianne, Héloise, and the house servant Sophie (Luàna Bajrami), who each wear mostly the same dress throughout the film, keeping our attention solely on the characters’ actions and dialogue without any distraction. Details like the fire burning behind Marianne as she and Héloise are sitting at the piano or the lack of male faces throughout the film construct a more intense picture of the film.

In a discussion she has with Marianne, we learn that Héloise comes from a sheltered background. She was unable to indulge in frivolity because she lived with nuns for most of her life and mourns for the music she didn’t get to listen to as a child. But the film takes Héloise’s convent past as an opportunity with the film’s lack of score. The film fully embraces Héloise’s experiences and its 18th century setting, relying on the sounds within the scenes to create a song for themselves—an exhalation, crackling flames, a ragged sob.

Though we listen to the film through Héloise’s ears, we view the film through Marianna’s artistic eyes. We are given images—a raging beach, a chaotic palette, Marianne’s hands, an armpit—that function as not only works of art, but also the medium that brings a love story to life. But this love story is not unfamiliar, as the film pauses in the middle for the characters tell the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. “He knew that she must be just behind him,” Héloise reads to a jaded Sophie and contemplative Marianne. “But he longed unutterably to give one glance to make sure.”

In an effort to bring back his lost love Eurydice, Orpheus travels to the Underworld and convinces Hades to let him bring her back to the land of the living. He is allowed to do so under the condition that as he exits the realm, he does not look behind him as Eurydice follows him. As he leaves, Orpheus looks forward for some time but hesitates and turns around to see if she’s really there. Eurydice was behind him, but underneath his gaze, her spirit dispels, and Orpheus loses her to the Underworld.

The director has stated that the myth has a feminist implication that she emphasized in the film. "Orpheus and Eurydice is a myth that has been looked at by feminists a lot because it’s basically about how the male gaze can kill you," she said in an interview with Vox. The male gaze is criticized for its hypersexualitization, as the way it exists in film two-dimensionalizes its characters, stripping them of any moral fiber.

In this film, just as with Orpheus and Eurydice, Héloise and Marianne soon recognize the threatening nature of a gaze. Through allusory flame imagery, we see these characters quite literally burn with desire for one another. The audience watches the film through Marianne’s eyes, and they see Héloise as Marianne sees her: sharp but supple, beautiful but threatening. Marianne is ridden with visions of a spirit Héloise, a translucent image of a woman she learns to love in their time together. Despite their little time with each other, a closeness is quickly established. They’re vulnerable with one another, making the romance itself fulfilling and sweet. Like Orpheus and Eurydice, their love is piercing.

Marianne, like Orpheus, is “forbidden” to look at Héloise, her Eurydice. Not because of an arbitrary restriction cast by a deity, but because of the clandestine nature of homosexual relationships. Her adoring gaze is of a lover, though she is not allowed to be with another woman, let alone one that is arranged to be married.

The film, however, never makes their love feel forbidden, and there is no discussion of the societal implications of their romantic relationship. The only tension exists between these characters and the running clock, and Marianne and Héloise’s love for each other makes their inevitable parting much more painful.

It is worth mentioning that this film is a fantastic depiction of lesbian romance. With their gratuitious sex scenes and often hypersexualized female characters, the depiction of female-female relationships in other films often contribute to harmful misconceptions about lesbian relationships. The film avoids both of these scenarios, with the female characters being sympathetic on every end of the spectrum and the nude scenes often poignant, artful, but never unwarranted.

In an obvious reference to the end of the myth, Héloise begs Marianne to turn around when she is forced to leave. Marianne does, but the pain—evident from her face—becomes that much more intense. It is only because Marianne loves Héloise that she loses her, and this tragic irony touches the heart of the viewers. She rushes out the door, never to meet Héloise face-to-face again.

There are many ways Marianne looks at Héloise throughout this film: as a stranger, a painter, a lover. But it's that last one that best exemplifies the story of Eurydice and Orpheus. And with a two-hour running time, the film gives a greater justification to Orpheus’s—often deemed—foolish decision to turn around.

“He’s madly in love. He can’t resist,” a vehement Héloise argues to Sophie and Marianne, as she tries to justify Orpheus’s decision to them. She then makes eye contact with Marianne, who seems to know what she means by the sentiment, and as the film progresses, we learn that Héloise was not just talking about Orpheus. And as we witness societal expectations rip them apart from one another, we understand the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice a bit more.

In the “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” we see Orpheus’s yearning for desire and the potential for resolution overturned by a situation too good to be true, resulting in Eurydice’s inevitable demise. That’s what a good retelling does: it mixes the familiar with the unknown—reaffirming an age-old message while providing another understanding of the tale itself.