The Films of Celine Sciamma: Petite Maman

            The fifth film in my analysis of The films of Celine Sciamma is the childhood fable, Petite Maman. Sciamma shows complete command of the medium as she unfolds a fantasy about coping with grief, the human fallibility of our parents, and the importance of cultivating relationships based on equal power and authority. This short paper will look at the creative wake after Sciamma’s previous film:  Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and the impact of COVID-19 on the development of this story of familial friendship between mother and daughter; before subsequently breaking down and applying the specific Sociological idea of Socialization, and the rites of passage experienced through one’s family and peer groups; social mechanisms which shape our understanding of the world and help us foster a sense of self-identity that carries us through into adulthood.

 

PLOT

            After the death of her grandmother, 8-year-old Nelly (Josephine Sanz) accompanies her parents to her mother’s childhood home to remove her grandmother’s belongings and settle affairs. The morning after their arrival, Nelly’s mother abruptly vanishes leaving her father in charge. That same day, as she is walking in the woods, Nelly comes upon a young girl named Marion (Gabrielle Sanz) who is building a fort between a small grove of trees. Nelly quickly deduces Marion to be her mother’s 8-year-old self.  Over the next three days, both girls have interactions and adventures in the past and present. Through these adventures they grow closer, learning about and from one another, until the magic that brought them together dissipates, returning to their own time; happy, accepting, and more contemplative.

 

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

            The two most significant historical events that impacted the expression, interpretation and craft of Petite Maman were the COVID-19 pandemic, its lockdown, and the dissipation of the acclaim and success of Sciamma’s previous venture. The combination of the critical financial and populist wave for Portrait climaxing at the end of the award season circuit, and immediately after, the world transitioning into lockdown due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, for Sciamma, was the creative equivalent of a high-speed car crash. The film at once speeding down this highway of accolades, which abruptly ceased when the world shut down. However, with that time, Sciamma crafted what some have called a necessary pandemic picture.

            Production

            When Portrait of a Lady on Fire was released in 2019, it sent Sciamma on an unexpected whirlwind media tour that continued to build with each viewing. Her sapphic period romance struck a chord with critics and fans alike. The raw emotion and devastation of Portrait[1] spoke to the audience as it pulverized their collective metaphoric hearts. Soon, an entire fan culture was built up around the film bringing together those with an affinity for the period drama. People began to share memes, engage in cosplay, and get a variety of tattoos to commemorate the film. In true death of the author fashion, Sciamma’s quasi-biographical revisionist story of an artist falling in love with the subject of her painting became owned by the public. It was a community that had formed around the enjoyment of the film. Fans would immortalize their favorite scenes in paint, as they reproduced specific shots from the film. Additionally, critics heaved high critical praise on the film. These lauding accolades launched the film into one of the best of 2019 with Sight and Sound ranking it one of the 30^th greatest film of all time. Never had Sciamma experienced this level of success and acclaim, discussing it makes her feel outside herself. In an interview with Director Joachim Trier for the Petite Maman Criterion edition Blu-Ray, Sciamma described this experience as “the best most intense years of her life” even if she was overwhelmed by the response (Criterion Collection 2023). While the festival circuit and press junkets certainly feel like their own siloed cyclone of self-indulgent propaganda for a director; they do taper off and eventually expel their energy upon the shore. Yet, after March 2020, around when all of the production advertising for the film was ending, the world shut down. There was no other wave to ride. However, it turned out to be the perfect recipe for Sciamma’s next venture.

A COVID Era Film[2]  

            The period of the COVID-19 lockdown was devastating. Uncertainty and mass death loomed as collective interaction became literally toxic. With almost 1.2 million people dead in the US by March 2022, those of us who survived (either the virus, lockdown or both) became accustom to social distancing (6 ft) washing our hands consistently, repeatedly, for at least 28 seconds (everyone had a different song in their head), having “driveway” meet ups and greeting each other with our elbows. For those lucky enough to get through relatively unscathed, it was a very weird time. The culture shift was immediate and encompassing. The sociological study and analysis of this period will be forever a rich window into human behavior under stressful conditions that ran the gamut of: holding an introverted secret that some people liked the pandemic excuse to not have to go places or see people, to the right-wing “libertarian” political caricatures who protested state and federal buildings with guns over having to wear a mask. For films and the industry, it was equally challenging and overwhelming for all involved.

            The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown also meant that movie theaters were shuttered, barring a short window of ill-advised reopening, from March 2020 until April 2021. This left a lot of people in the industry scrambling. Most films had some type of delay (as in the beginning few people knew how long restrictions and lockdown were going to last). Drive-ins became popular again, and helped indie theaters stay afloat, Streaming Services were launched with the promise of new release movies directly to customers homes, and Christopher Nolan thought he could single handedly save the theatrical experience with Tenet. Like the social programs put in place during the great depression, no one single fix for the industry worked to stave off massive financial losses, and inadvertently created a culture of anti-theater going that theater-owners are still trying to correct today. Yet, under these conditions, art was still being made, and Petite Maman, from its inception to its premiere is a paragon of pandemic filmmaking.      

            Land locked in France in March of 2020, Sciamma went to sleep and dreamt of two young girls building a fort in the forest; one of those girls was the mother, and the other was her daughter. When she awoke, she knew that she had the idea for her next feature. As Sciamma developed the script, the pandemic raged: no vaccines, and not a lot of hope on the horizon. Some of the real-world loss began to bleed into the script. The story’s inciting incident of the loss of an elderly loved one who you “didn’t have a good goodbye” with, became practically prescient given how many loved ones expressed last words through alienating cell phone communication because of the risk of infection. Those same loved ones would eventually be piled into refrigerated trucks because the death toll was so high they could not process all of the bodies quick enough. A poor ‘goodbye’ indeed. Still, in this context, Sciamma wanted to show us a way forward, and this is often easily done through the eyes of a child.

            Principal Photography on Petite Maman began in November 2020 and shot for 25 days, ending in December 2020 just around the time that the first COVID-19 vaccines were released, and well before the federal mandate. At the time, heavy restrictions were placed on film productions in order to maintain the spread, before the number of inoculated reached parity. According to the European Film Commissions at the time, a film production operating during COVID (but after the lockdown order was lifted) required:   

·         Test for Actors and Related Professionals- Everyone needed to test negative before filming.

·         The Use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)- face mask, respirators and latex gloves for everyone on the crew

·         Personal Disinfectant- For extensive and long takes. Crew members must carry disinfectant wipes or a 30 ml. bottle of personal disinfectant to wipe areas clean during filming set ups.

·         Onsite Organization- There needs to be larger spaces made available to maintain safe distances when crews work and eat; to maintain a 6-foot distance.  

·          Temperature management- Everyone on the crew must have their temperature checked before the start of the shooting day.

·         Catering- All the food needed to be packaged for take-away so that they could eat it while engaging in social distancing.

·         Securing the Location- When scouting locations assume the place is infected; and cleaning crews should go ahead of time and clean everything.

·         Necessary Documentation- In contracts there needs to be an expression of the risk of exposure, so that if anyone contracts COVID-19 they cannot sue the studio.

·         Management during Filming There needs to be a coordinating and supervising of anti- contagion measures by a safety specialist  

·         Focus on Waste Management-All possibly infected equipment needs to be properly disposed.

These were the strict conditions under which Petite Maman was filmed. According to the Criterion (2023) interview, Sciamma mentioned that there was so much distance and protocol keeping the crew and the actors apart that it felt very alienating at times, especially considering the French child actor labor laws, that only let child actors work for three hours a day. These restrictions, both in European countries and around the world, created a collective experience that linked all films in production at that time; whether they decided to continue principal photography, shutter production, or wait it out and come back when normalcy was thrust upon us.

 COVID era filmmaking had some surprising similarities because of these parallel restrictions. Regardless of plot, genre, and style that might make them seem more diverse, many films were structured in a similar way

 Films shot entirely during COVID, often:

·         Were shot in a single location or multiple isolated locations.

·         Involved few actors

·         Blocked scenes with three or fewer people interacting at a time

·         Had a limited crew  

·         Included camera techniques to try to make up for the production difficulties

These similarities point to the fact that shooting under the Pandemic restrictions lend to a certain type of genre filmmaking, specifically Dramas, that can be introspective and thoughtful rather than bombastic because that added risk. The films that did not fit this criterion that were being shot during COVID were most likely the films that were already in production prior to lockdown, which resumed once restrictions were lifted.[3] Some of the films mentioned the pandemic, while most others ignored it.

For Petite Maman, since Sciamma conceived it just prior to lockdown, when they were allowed to begin principal photography, she knew how and where she wanted to shoot the film. It has two primary locations: The woods and the grandmother’s house (set dressed to look like the past and the present). The set had few rooms and there were no more than three actors in a scene together at any one time; and only 5 total actors in the main cast. The story moves back and forth from the house, with each room having scenes in both the present and the past. It is economical, terse and brilliant for the conditions the world was under; and gives credence to the arts’ ability to thrive even in the worst circumstances.

SOCIAL ANALYSIS

 According to Sciamma, one of the major influences on the development and style of Petite Maman was Hayao Miyazaki, more specifically My Neighbor Totoro[4]. The Ghibli-esque childhood whimsy while experiencing hardship is fully embodied by Sciamma’s 2021 film. Its circumstances and casual acceptance of the extraordinary with little interrogation mirror Miyazaki’s work in beautiful way.  Both films provide some amount of magical realism, and both films deal expertly with the themes of fear, grief and loss.

 Grief and Loss

Sociologically, grief and loss are rarely touched upon, as these subjects are often monopolized by Psychology, and its derivative variants. Yet, grief and loss are something we all collectively deal with, it is a feature of all cultures and life in general. There are aspects of collective grief that create and bind communities, cults and collectives together. Empathy allows for a clearer understanding of others regardless of cultural, generational, economic or other identity barriers. We all grieve. We all experience loss. And yet, we often, by choice or by circumstance, endure grief alone.

The Sociological theoretical perspective that is often used to talk about the more social psychological aspects of life is symbolic Interactionism (SI) and more specifically the social construction of reality. Briefly, symbolic interactionism is a sociological conceptual framework which emphasizes the creation, meaning and application of various symbols (usually language and gestures) through social interaction and observation. Constructionism, a derivative of SI, understands that meaning is conditional to the historical, cultural and social context that is present. So, through these lenses, by living in society we understand grief and loss by how we interact and react to people experiencing it; while recognizing that other cultures, societies and nations throughout time have a different but equally respectful (usually) process for dealing with death.

According to Maciejewski, Falzarano, She, Lichtenthal, and Prigerson (2021) there are three basic principles of bereavement: Void in the Social State, Void Filling, and collective acceptance. The “Void in the Social State” refers to the monumental shift that happens micro socially to individual lives when experiencing loss. There is a massive context shift for the individual(s) who are left behind. In the case of spousal loss, the bereaved has to content with being single again, adopting the roles and responsibilities that were once shared with the deceased partner. Additionally, they also have to reconfigure their position in the various external relationships that they are a part of. This restructuring may increase in difficulty depending on how those relationships were established, which may also cause disruption (Maciejewski et.al. 2021).

Continuing the bereavement process requires a “filling of the void” left by the departed. Typically, this is understood as a mental distraction, and people throw themselves into work, hobbies or home projects as a form of avoidance from dealing with grief and processing the loss. However, this urge to avoid and process, while common, leads to isolation which creates a self-destructive spiral of internalized blame. While more difficult, it is much healthier to do the opposite and not only lean on already established relationships but do best to create new ones which will develop new roles for the bereaved and challenge them to reconfigure their relationships (Maciejewski et.al. 2021).

Collective acceptance is achieved through the understanding that while specific grief and loss is unique to the individuals involved, the general experience of grief is socially shared. Life exists and therefore also death. It exists every day, even if we are not its current target, either directly or indirectly we all will know death. This collective acceptance of death can be comforting. This is unfortunately hindered by our cultural individualism, which reinforces the uniqueness of persons rather than all of the overlapping experiences we all share.

Petite Maman sees Nelly and her family go through these bereavement stages. The first shot of the film is of an empty hospital bed. The camera then follows Nelly as she walks through all of the rooms of the Nursing home saying “Goodbye” to all the residents there. It will later be revealed the greater significance of this moment, but in the film’s opening, it is showing us a visual representation of “the void in social state” by showing us the wake of what the dead leave behind; and as it is removed, the emptiness that is left. This continues through the establishment of the grandmother’s house in the present; it too is emptying throughout the film’s run time. Nelly and her parents also seek to fill the void by understanding their roles after their loss. While Nelly’s parents are direct and extremely candid with her about their lives and what they can remember from their childhood, it is the establishing of Nelly’s relationship with Marion that allows Nelly to process not only her own grief but understand her mother’s process through loss as well. Thus, by the end of the film, both Nelly and the adult Marion understand each other as they have come out of this process, filling the empty space left by their loved one.

Socialization- The Family and Peer Groups

       Socialization, the process of social learning that begins prior to birth and continues throughout a person’s life, is guided by individuals, groups and institutions that break up this necessary information into digestible and “age appropriate” pieces. This process is divided for better comprehension and scaffolding through childhood into adulthood by using cultural rites of passage that provide a smoother transition into more responsibility and give greater amounts of freedom.  Two of these mechanisms that assist in this process of socialization are the family and peer groups.

As a mechanism of socialization, the family provides a filtered glimpse of the social world. It does not give the children a complete and full picture of reality out of a sense of protectionism. It is through the family that a child’s world first gains structure- one that is fluidly designed by the parents’ values, choices and experiences; to give their children a since of creativity through fostering their imagination and exposing them to the broader social world to prepare them for adulthood. One particularly difficult part of this process is the slow relinquishing of control that results in both parents and children recognizing each other, both outside of the roles they were originally given, and seeing each other as a person. By befriending Marion (the younger version of her mother), Nelly begins to see her mother as a person outside of her familial role. Marion reveals to her future daughter that she wanted to be an actress but eventually gave up on that dream. Nelly also comes to realize that the bouts of depression that overtake her mother were never her fault. Marion assuages her daughter’s guilt by saying “It is not about you... I can’t stop thinking about you...I can’t wait to meet you. But sadness is something that is always there.” Setting aside the magical realism that allowed this friendship to blossom, many children come to these realizations, that their parents are also flawed fallible people from either a crystalized moment of disappointment through therapy, or both. Sciamma just contextualizes through the power of cinema the realization that all parents are people and not the center of anyone’s universe.

Peer groups are another mechanism of socialization that is integral to the social learning process of socialization. The fundamental importance of friends, colleagues and others in the same age group in understanding the social world can be explained through the difference between sympathy and empathy. While often used as synonyms, these terms have a fundamental difference that highlights the value of peer groups to the overall process of deciphering the ordered chaos of any social reality. Often, when sympathy is invoked, there is a lack of similar context involved. A person who sympathizes has likely been through a similar/same experience, but not within the current context, with the same pressures and demands levied on a person. Additionally, when someone is being sympathetic, there is likely an air of judgement or sense of superiority built from feelings of pity and privilege. Their emotional or social investment is miniscule, or contaminated by classist, racist, sexist or ethnocentric pedestaled posturing.  Empathy is generated when individuals either experience the same context as another person or can accurately place themselves in the emotional and social state of others. Out of all the mechanisms of socialization, peer groups lend themselves to empathy more easily than other groups.  There is power in the solidarity of experiencing the world in the same place and time as other people. Collective experiences allow us to form bonds and have a collective conscience for how the world is interpreted and known.    

Nelly and Marion have their first meet cute in the forest and strike up a quick friendship over the building of a fort in the woods. The forming of this peer group, and the comradery that is built from it, allows for an understanding of each other and a grounding in an acceptance of personhood beyond the roles they were assigned in their original familial relationship. Over the three days they are together, they are able to connect in ways that were not possible with Nelly and adult Marion. Both children see the world similarly. Through play, cooking, and conversations they talk through fears, long held desires, and experiences in the future. Because of their similar age, this can be done without criticism, providing a strong support system. Marion is worried about a surgical procedure that she must endure to eliminate the chances of a hereditary disease. Nelly helps her talk through these fears and is supportive of her until she leaves for the hospital.  Nelly, getting over the loss of her grandmother and the feelings of alienation from her mother, is assuaged by young Marion that neither are her fault.  Knowing Marion as her 8-year-old self contextualizes for Nelly her mother’s experiences. This empathy results in a nontoxic sympathy at the end of the film when mother and daughter are reunited in their own time. Each character is richer with understanding and a sense of gratitude from the other; both for the roles that they inhabit, and their individual personalities that illuminate them.   

 

CONCLUSION

            Celine Sciamma’s Petite Maman is a masterpiece. A condensed whimsical magically realist minimalism in the style of early Hayao Miyazaki, this film embraces feelings of hope and familial bonds at a time when the eminent and immediate threat of a global pandemic siloed individuals into bubbles to stop the spread of a virus. Sciamma is the first director in my director analysis series where I did not like their earlier work, but they managed to win me over with the latter half of their filmography. Regardless, their contribution to cinema, especially the focus of the non-objectifying camera through “the female gaze” needs to be heralded as the cultural shift needed to encourage more cis/transgendered females and nonbinary people of every fluid sexual disabled and neurodivergent identity to become writers and directors to tell their own stories.

 

REFERENCES

Paul K. Maciejewski, Francesca B. Falzarano, Wan Jou She, Wendy G. Lichtenthal, Holly G. Prigerson 2021. “A Micro-Sociological Theory of Adjustment to Loss” in Science Direct  retrieved on: 4/26/2025 retrieved at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352250X21000889  

The Criterion Collection 2023. “ A Conversation with director Celine Sciamma and filmmaker Joachim Trier” in Petite Maman Blu-Ray (Spine 1181) Dir Celine Sciamma.     

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[1] Seconded only by the work of Wong Kar Wai and Linklighter’s Before Trilogy

[2] It needs to be mentioned that COVID is still around and continues to be a persistent threat.

[3] The one notable exception to this is Dev Patel’s “Monkey Man” a revenge action film that was able to be filmed because production were incarcerated in  a strict 500 person COVID- bubble.

[4] Which I reviewed in April of 2020

The Films of Celine Sciamma: A Portrait of a Lady on Fire

                The fourth film in my analysis of The Films of Celine Sciamma is the sapphic period drama A Portrait of a Lady on Fire. The first film of Sciamma’s career, which isn’t placed in a modern context, is also the film with the most thematic depth and cinematic nuance, where the command of her craft is on full display. Sciamma crystalizes in celluloid the thought, themes, and philosophy that encapsulates her vision as an auteur.  Yet, when taking a critical sociological perspective to Sciamma’s most celebrated work to date, we see the cracks in the acrylic that are caked on the canvas. In fact, through this lens, some of the noted and praiseworthy aspects of the film may be reevaluated; an unfortunate sociological turpentine that dissolves the heavily lauded art on screen.

 

PLOT

Marianne (Moemie Merlant) a 1770’s French painter is called to Brittany, France to paint the portrait of a Noble woman’s daughter, Heloise (Adele Haenel). The portrait is designed to entice a Noble man to marry her client’s progeny. However, because Heloise is resistant to the chattel marriage that she has been thrust into by the suicide of her older sister, the painting must be drawn in secret. As Marianne and Heloise get closer, the objective artist’s gaze turns romantic and is reciprocated. Every day, as the painting becomes closer to being finished, so too is their precociously perennial passion endangered of being snuffed out by time, class status and circumstance.

 

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

            In both the production of A Portrait of a Lady on Fire and the period it is supposed to represent, there are liberties and contrivances that allow for a more modern/postmodern interpretation outside of the conventions of the context depicted. Granted, Sciamma and painting consultant Helene Delmaire, mined history to construct the amalgamated backstory of Marianne, giving her the blended narrative flavor of many female painters of the 1770’s. Still, the whole conceit of the film is in and of itself a respite from the patriarchy, which by design, allows for a more contemporary perspective. Thus, in addition to deploying her pioneered “female gaze” in the picture, Sciamma makes a period film feel contemporary, at the same time, giving historical legitimacy to the anachronisms she adds.

            Production

            Principal Photography for A Portrait of a Lady on Fire occurred in the Fall of 2018, taking only 38 days. Shot entirely on location at Saint-Pierre-Quiberon in Brittany and a château in La Chapelle-Gauthier, Seine-et-Marne; the film embodies the realities of aristocratic life of the time. In vacant hallways and empty rooms, Sciamma and Cinematographer Claire Mathon tangibly render the differences between class status and wealth.

In most (improper) cinematic depictions of the aristocracy, be they English or French, there is a level of opulence that was uncharacteristic of the time[1]. This specific anachronism is more a product of illustrating class struggles, particularly the chasmic gulf between the rich and the poor, almost by a one-to-one comparison. The rich are lavishly dressed and well fed, with gluttonous amounts of food prepared in an assortment of feasts for no actual occasion other than the whims of the ruling royals. Sciamma dispenses with the glitz, glamour and lavishness of an irreconcilable fantasy of familial nobility; indicating through the subtle barrenness of the Chateau, and the sacredness of the green dress for the portrait, that while the family (and their name) still holds esteem and social capital value,[2] they are also poor.  Thus, they use chattel marriage as a necessary way out of destitution.  

   

            In the film, this distinction is vocalized in an argument between Marianne and Heloise:

            Heloise: You blame me for what comes next…My Marriage. You don’t support me.

            Marianne: You are right.

            Heloise: Go on. Say what burdens your heart. I believed you braver.

             Marianne: I believed you were braver, too.

            Heloise: That’s it then. You find me docile. Worse. You imagine me collusive. You imagine my pleasure

            Marianne: It is a way of avoiding hope.

            Heloise: Imagine me Happy or Unhappy if that reassures you. But do not imagine me guilty. You prefer I resist?

            Marianne: Yes.

            Heloise: Are you asking me to? Answer Me!

            Marianne: No.  

This conversation is further punctuated by the freedom Marianne has as a painter because she inherited her father’s business. It affords her the choice to be married or not; something that Heloise points out is a luxury she does not have after her sister’s suicide. It is this sense of and taste of freedom that Marianne both represents and provides Heloise which she first finds attractive; a status that she cannot achieve but through this brief respite.

            Rather than shoot on film, Sciamma and Mathon chose to photograph using 8k cameras, to give the film an overexposed look. In an interview with The Criterion Collection, Sciamma states that this hyperclarity was important to the intimacy of the film and the overall tenderness between the actors. According to Sciamma, skin, and the capturing of its shades and textures were so important to the film, that it needed to have a bold sharpness that would accentuate the subtle nuances of light, shadow, costume and movement. Mathon and Sciamma framed each shot to emulate Victorian paintings; often having the actors in a wide shot with the camera locked off, allowing the actors to move freely about the space, seemingly not worrying about marks, or blocking. To complement the shot composition and the artistic crispness of the images being captured, Mathon and Sciamma decided to only use natural light, candlelight, or light from the cookfire to illuminate the scene. This diegesis articulates the filmmakers desire to emulate literal artwork. The combination of light and shadow drifting across the screen creates a mirrored seductive dance that visually articulates the desires of Marianne and Heloise. With the elements of the 8k cameras, the wide angle locked off camera shots, and use of natural and diegetic lighting, each frame truly is a painting.

            Sexual Prominence

            As implied in the film, the period of the 1770’s in France was indifferent but not openly hostile to those in the LGBTQAI+ community. While there wasn’t a public embrace of practices; there was an acceptance of existence. Yet, comparatively, just a few years after the time the events of the story take place, France would take some of the biggest and boldest steps toward tolerance and eventual acceptance of the LGBTQ community by being the first country in history to decriminalize sodomy after their Revolution in 1791.  Additionally, like in other geographic locations at the time, it would take generations for these practices to coalesce and solidify into a particular identity that was not only accepted, but welcomed and vigorously defended.

            As with the differences of class and wealth, the film depicts how class differences allow for greater obfuscation of non-heterosexual identities, desires and behaviors. Prior to her sister’s death, Heloise lived in the convent. This is presumably due to her sexual proclivities and thus would have gained some measure of peace had her sister not trapped her in the institution of the heterosexist patriarchy through her suicide. This personified using the green dress in the titular ‘portrait’[3] and the portrait itself.

In prerevolutionary France, as with many other cultures that use the corset (as the green dress does in the film) it is a garment that both “lifts women up and brings her down (Gibson 2020: 109). Both the green dress and the function of the portrait is to entice men. Yet, as we see in the film, the production of the portrait is one that is full of agency, as is the way and under what conditions the corset is warn. Both corset and portrait manufacture a patriarchally pleasing “womanly shape” and both are the product of male fetishization. Yet, the production of these products is female controlled. In Portrait, the women carve out space for themselves to have as much agency and choice they can glean from the ubiquitous and ethereal patriarchy throughout the near totality of the film’s runtime. Even though Marianne and Heloise know their time together is ephemeral, the women still choose to have it. As Dr. Gibson is fond of saying: “You always have a choice. It might be a choice with horrible options, but it is still a choice…and you always have to make it.” (Brutlag 2023).          

The isolation of the characters in the film, not only allows them to escape the latticed interlocking mechanisms of the patriarchy but allows them to build a queer feminist commune; one that is built on mutual respect, friendship and eventually passion. In her novel, Herland, Gilman (1991) illustrates the female commune as a Utopian society that is unraveled by the presence and intervention of men. Each man in Gilman’s story is a representation of consistent masculine stereotypes which are found in the patriarchal society. It is this combined effort which eradicates (through the slow and steady toxicity of masculinity) the feminist commune utopia. A society that had no crime, war, or political strife. A society that had a care model that engages in socialist practices, not just its rhetoric. Yet, Gilman (1991) cannot conceive of women having sex with each other. Instead, because motherhood is so important, children are genetically engineered in “Herland”. Yet, while Gilman (1991) is suspiciously quiet about homosexuality, Sciamma seems to be parroting Simone de Beauvoir (2010) in acknowledging its naturalness; and the complex mechanism of psychology, social circumstances and history that contributes to its self-discovery and active choices. Women just need a chance and space to create this sapphic feminist utopia for themselves.

During the film’s production, French Government launched “The International Strategy for Gender Equality”

 France is enhancing the coherence and effectiveness of gender actions in its development assistance policies and external action. The 3rd International Strategy for Gender Equality (2018-2022) is a steering tool designed to coordinate France’s efforts to improve the situation of women around the world. The strategy is the international embodiment of the President’s commitment to make gender equality the great national cause of his term.

This strategy acknowledges that women and girls are disproportionally affected by poverty, violent conflict and climate change, causing them to experience and face unequal and undo hardships, barriers and a constant threat of sexual violence around the world. Therefore, this strategy “enable survivors of conflict-related sexual violence to access compensation and reparations to help them reintegrate to society” …through a Global Survivors’ Fund. Additionally, this strategy bolstered political support for gender issues, financial equity issues, and made them more visible to the public. During that same time, the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs and the AFD, provided €120 million over three years (2020-2022) to finance the activities of feminist organizations worldwide.

            Concurrently, during the #Metoo movement in the United States, Ninety-nine prominent French women signed a letter accusing the Hollywood anti-abuse campaign of censorship and intolerance.   Stating:

            “What began as freeing women up to speak has today turned into the opposite – we intimidate people into speaking ‘correctly’, shout down those who don’t fall into line, and those women who refused to bend [to the new realities] are regarded as complicit and traitors”

The article cited perceives a populist puritanism that fails to see nuance in a complicated subject. While these activists are right in principle, their consistent protection of men and their use of the shield of sexual positivity minimizes, deflects, and ignores the ways that sexual assault and the sexual violence of “The Rape culture” is polymorphous.

            ‘A Portrait’ of Sciamma and Haenel: A Revisionist history?

             This was the first film I watched from Celine Sciamma; and it was the brilliance, masterwork and love of this film that made me want to include Sciamma in this director series. As readers can tell from previous essays, as I began to go back into Sciamma’s filmography beginning with her loose “Coming of Age” trilogy, I was troubled by what I found. I had expected to see shades or echoes of the technical mastery that is found here in ‘Portrait’ from a filmmaker who compassionately shows women’s burgeoning love through agency, autonomy and choice. A filmmaking style that was a much-needed relief from the objectifying patriarchal male gaze that propagates in any (moving) picture directed by any cisgendered man with a fragile ego that sees the camera as an extension of his genitals. Instead, I perceived Sciamma’s films to expose predatory sexual behavior, faux trans allyship and racism. So, when I rewatched this film as background and context for this review, I was worried that my perspective would shift and my love for this film would diminish. Surprisingly, even though I revisit this film annually, I still found it to be a feminist, passionately erotic, longingly heart wrenching masterpiece. Yet, I could not reconcile my perceived incongruity between this film and Sciamma’s earlier work[4]. Was I not seeing something darker in Portrait that I had seen in the previous trilogy, because of my affinity for the film? Did I need to give the coming-of-age trilogy another shot? As I was mulling over this inconsistency while I was rewatching Portrait, perplexed by my take of her previous films stating: “I like that this one [Portrait] is about choice and agency from two women of similar ages that have equal power and control in the relationship.” And this was what Adelle Haenel did not have when she entered into a romantic relationship with Sciamma after Water Lillies. Then, taking a broader analytical look, I remembered that the part of Heloise was written for Haenel, and it all clicked into place.

            When you look at Portrait through the lens of Sciamma’s and Haenel’s relationship, coupled with the knowledge that Heloise was written for Haenel; the relationship between Marianne and Heloise becomes both autobiographical and revisionist. Sciamma seems bent on reconceptualizing her relationship with Haenel without the imbalance of power that existed when they met through their roles in the film production of Water Lillies, and their considerable age difference. Marianne, the painter, is Sciamma’s surrogate observing Haenel’s Heloise. The framing and shooting of Haenel betray the intimacy that was once between the director and actor; just as Marianne in the film can capture Heloise with a loving grace that is unmatched. Art imitates life in Portrait as Marianne’s existence (as a free Queer woman) entices Heloise, and it is through Marianne’s guidance that Heloise’s (sexual) world opens. Through this critique, every aspect of erotic passion and intimacy seems like an abuser in their contrition stage gaslighting their victim into believing their version of events. This cinematic gaslighting allows Sciamma to attempt to reframe her past relationship with Haenel as less predatory. But this practice also recontextualizes the female gaze, one of this film’s most lauded strengths.

 

SOCIAL ANALYSIS           

            A Portrait of a Lady on Fire has a forward-facing feminism at every level. Writer/director Celine Sciamma is a self-identified feminist that cites French Feminist literature and art,  95% of the cast and 65% of the crew that worked on the project are women, the overarching themes are feminist, collectively dealing with contemporary women’s issues, and many journalist and scholars have written about the film regarding: The feminist politics of love, female solidarity, erotic entanglements of ambition, and of course the female gaze. The film also won the Screenplay award at Cannes and even won that year’s Queer Palm; marking the first time the prize has been given to a female director. The praise for this film is exceptional, because this is an exceptional film. On every technical and narrative level, this film is perfect; allowing a richness of commentary that is widely diverse, extending well into the cultural zeitgeist. Genovese and Paige (2024) update Adrianne Rich’s landmark “Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Lesbian Existence” through the prism of ‘A Portrait’, discussing the way that queerness can be a freedom within a heteropatriarchal society that continue to plague these relationships, lurking around the corner like some horror movie villain. Meanwhile, they see the use of the Orpheus and Euridice myth both romanticizes and gives agency to the tragedy of Marianne and Heloise’s fleeting relationship (Genovese and Paige 2024).

In the face of such excellent analysis and work on the subject, much of what follows may seem both shallow and derivative, as the power and excellence of this film is well documented. Yet, the splinter that continues to dig its way into my brain throughout all my reviews of Sciamma’s work thus far, is the incongruity between what the films say they represent, and aspects of the film’s production that contradict that messaging. As stated earlier, Sciamma’s predatory shot composition in Water Lilies, her disingenuous trans allyship without taking a stance on Trans politics in Tomboy, the white savor-y way that Sciamma looks at Black girls in  Girlhood, and the revisionist gaslighting of Sciamma’s previous relationship with Haenel in Portrait speak to a hypocrisy that is difficult to ignore. Thus, this section will both echo the film’s acclaim and interrogate the unresolved criticism I have with Sciamma as a filmmaker.

The Female Gaze

Sciamma is credited with articulating “the female gaze” in cinema. “The female gaze” is often framed against the typically cinephilic “male gaze” that genders the perspective of the camera as being heterosexually male. This is due to the historical sexism of the industry and the longevity of female exclusion behind the camera, especially as writers, cinematographers and directors. The longitudinal result of this is a film culture with established filmmaking techniques that objectify women. Since camera movement and angles, shot structures, and compositions all assume a male perspective, many of those movie methods are inherently sexist, often without the awareness of those that participate in its re-creation…especially if those people identify as men. Unfortunately, this also led to a shallow understanding of “the female gaze” to only mean: “when the camera is gendered heterosexually female”, which resulted in the increasing practice of men being objectified by the camera in a similar way. It is important to note that this can never be an equal one-to-one comparison due to the patriarchal power dynamics that are still in the industry. Sexualizing men in a similar way as the sexualization of women does not have the same level of impact. Conversely to this popular opinion, “the female gaze” is a point of view of the camera that respects the subjectivity of the person being looked at by seeing them as an individual and indelible to the person who is looking (Genovese and Paige 2024).

Sciamma illustrates this definition beautifully in this conversation between Marianne and Heloise:

Marianne: I did not mean to hurt you.

Heloise: You haven’t hurt me.

Marianne: I have, I can tell. When you are moved you do this thing with your hand.

Heloise: Really?

Marianne: Yes. And when you’re embarrassed, you bite your lips. And when you are annoyed, you don’t blink.

Heloise: You know it all.

Marianne: Forgive me. I’d hate to be in your place.

Heloise: We are in the same place.  Exactly in the same place. Come here.  Come.

            Marianne approaches and stands next to Heloise

Step Closer.  Look. If you look at me, who do I look at? When you don’t know what to say you touch your forehead. When you lose control, you raise your eyebrows. And when you are troubled, you breathe through your mouth

When viewing this scene through a feminist lens, the audience is witnessing the building of a sapphic romance with a melancholic tragedy at its core; but one that is based on equal power, as Heloise states “They are exactly in the same place.” Objectively, this is as Sciamma describes in interviews, “the manifesto of the female gaze.” However, when you frame this same scene in the context of Haenel’s and Sciamma’s past relationship, the motivation seems more nefarious. Sciamma, the writer director, having Heloise say, “They are in the exact same place.” is a line spoken by her former lover, Haenel, to the character of Marianne, the Sciamma surrogate in the narrative. This can be taken as an attempt at providing Sciamma with absolution. Through this dialogue, Sciamma recontextualizes her past relationship with Haenel as being more egalitarian by proxy than it was in reality. By eliminating the power imbalance of both age and occupation when their relationship began, Sciamma revises her relationship with Haenel without taking any of the responsibility.  Additionally, through this critique, every single instance of positive, informed and active consent between Heloise and Marianne depicted in the film, cast doubt on how much active and informed consent there actually was in the relationship between Haenel and Sciamma themselves.    

Abortion and Access to reproductive care

A major subplot of A Portrait of a Lady on Fire is the solidarity that Heloise and Marianne have with Sophie as they create a temporary feminine collective (Genovese and Paige 2024). Together, Marianne and Heloise assist Sophie in ending her pregnancy once Sophie expresses that she wishes not to remain so. As the first few attempts prove to be unsuccessful, Marianne and Heloise accompany Sophie to a female commune where she undergoes a procedure to terminate the pregnancy. Genovese and Paige (2024) along with many other scholars and journalist reviewing this film, focused on the symbolic importance of the male coded infant in the bed with Sophie as the representation of masculine fragility and the social construction of toxic masculinity that eliminates the natural compassion all humans possess when witnessing the pain and anguish of another person.

Just as important, but less frequently mentioned, is Sophie and Heloise’s re-creation of the procedure for Marianne to paint for posterity. The depiction of these abortions is not only a way to catalog history, but provides those looking for similar procedures with hope that such a thing is possible. This is the feminist power of female solidarity and the strength of women as a collective when they are not socialized through the patriarchy to “bargain” away their power; causing the alienation and vilification of each other for the benefit of men. It is this unity that truly scares the patriarchal power, because men are socialized to not be complete human beings without women. Instead, they are socialized to outsource emotional labor and compassion to women. This is in addition to the lack of life skills that keep men in conditional dependency to the structure of patriarchy. Thus, female solidarity, a feminine collective or a matriarchal society is a principled threat to the patriarchy and therefore must be eradicated. Gilman (1991) illustrated this over a century ago in Herland where the insecurity of men attempts to dismantle the matriarchy of a feminist utopia. It is this very same fear and insecurity that has played out in US politics over the last 50 years.         

 In 1969, prior to the ratification of Roe v. Wade, the Abortion Counseling Service, code named “Jane”, referred women to abortion providers who set both prices and conditions (Kaplan 2019). This was an underground effort by a group of women to provide necessary life saving and changing services to women at a time when unwanted pregnancies increased the mortality rate of women through botched abortions with coat hangers in “back alleys”[5]. These remarkable women curbed the dangers of non-state sanctioned abortions until the process was governmentally regulated; the Abortion Counseling Service being one of the first legal abortion clinics established in 1973 after Roe. With Roe being repealed in June of 2022, and the 18 state trigger bans on the procedure, that were enacted once the federal law was eliminated, the US saw a 2.3 % increase in maternal deaths in the near three years hence. Thus, as predicted by women’s health advocates and scholars, the total number of abortions have not decreased; only the number of safe abortions where the lives of women are in less jeopardy. Therefore, like Sophie, many of today’s US women are leaning on female community solidarity to provide a service that was once determined to be an autonomous body right for women for nearly 50 years.

 

CONCLUSION

            The much-deserved accolades for Sciamma’s fourth film in her filmography, A Portrait of a Lady on Fire, position it to be the writer/director’s Magnum Opus, and the work she will be most associated with in perpetuity. It is a masterpiece of filmmaking in both technical skill and feminist thematic ideology. A miraculous cinematic achievement: a period piece that both centers itself on the realities of the past, while allegorically connecting to the same struggles of the present. Yet, it cannot be ignored that the development of the story and the overarching narrative seems retroactively self-serving; allowing Sciamma to absolve herself of criticism and guilt by using the language of film to recontextualize past relationships and abdicate blame.  

 

REFERENCES

Brutlag, Brian 2023. “Episode 29: The Handmaid’s Tale Franchise with Dr. Rebecca Gibson” in The Sociologist’s Dojo Podcast 142:22  https://thesociologistsdojo.libsyn.com/episode-29-the-handmaids-tale-franchise-with-dr-rebecca-gibson

de Beauvior, Simone 2010.  The Second Sex new York: Vintage books  

Genovese, Emma and Tamsin Phillipa Paige 2024. “Life as Distinct from Patriarchal Influence: Exploring Queerness and Freedom through A Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” In Australian Feminist Law Journal 50: 1 pp. 91-112.

Gibson, Rebecca 2020. The Corseted Skeleton: A Bioarcheology of Binding New York: Palgrave Macmillian

Gilman, Charolette Perkins 1991. Herland and Selected Stories Barbara Soloman eds. New York: Signet Classic.

Kaplan, Laura 2019. The Legendary Underground Abortion Service New York: Vintage Books.

Sciamma, Celine 2019. A Portrait of a Lady on Fire Lillie Films/Neon France   

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[1] Especially in the late 1770’s France where the seeds of revolution were being planted for a harvest that bore fruit in 1789.

[2] Social Capital is a Bourdieuian term to mean the value of a person’s  social relationships within a particular society. The value of those relationship have the ability to change depending on the changing context and dynamics of a particular social situation.

[3] I am aware that the actual “Portrait of a lady on fire” is not the portrait we see Marianne creating through the film but the picture she paints afterword of the image of Heloise by a bonfire with a streak of flame climbing up her dress.

[4] Granted, many directors lack consistency, many of them play with genre and tone that make them eclectic and well rounded. Plus, the inconsistent criticism is also unfairly lobbed at non-male directors as a not-so-subtle jab at their competence  

[5]  It should be mentioned that many of these clinics also provide general reproductive healthcare but because they are also tied to abortion access all of those other services like pap smears, mammograms, and breast cancer screenings are also lost.