In portrait of a lady on fire many different themes were explored including themes like womanhood, the female gaze and female solidarity. Céline Sciamma being a woman herself perfectly covered the feeling of being a woman and the comfort within being around fellow women. She not only represented the queer aspect to the two womens romance but also the solidarity and comfort that came with it that can only be experienced in a sapphic relationship.
One of the key aspects that I loved about the movie was the representation of abortion. It wasn’t condemned or seen as a shameful act. When Sophie tells Marianne that she is pregnant and does not want her baby we are never given any indication from Marianne that it is wrong, instead we cut straight to Marianne and Heloise helping Sophie have an abortion like having her run on the beach and picking a plant for Sophie to have boiled. One aspect I loved is that Marianne didn’t even know the exact details of what they were looking for and she almost blindly follows Sophie’s instructions without question because she cares about helping her no matter how much she knows. This very casual and truly normal portrayal of an abortion, in a time where it was absolutely NOT acceptable to have an abortion, allows us as the watchers to step away from the stigma that an abortion may have and really be able to appreciate the beauty of a woman making choices about her own body. We forget what society may have felt during that time and what society feels currently and we just focus on what is happening.
This concept of normality to Sophie’s abortion is also emphasized when they decided to paint it. Heloise and Sophie reenact the scene of Sophie completing her abortion as Marianne paints a portrait of it. I thought this was very significant because when you think of Portraits you think of an idealized painting of a person, especially for women where they are shown very modestly and molded to society’s standards. In portraits women are usually controlled and painted in a way that highlights their artificial and molded beauty. By painting Sophie’s abortion, an act that is a lot of times deemed disgusting, morally wrong or gritty (an act that does not meet women’s expectations in society), we not only normalize abortions but also acknowledge the beauty that can come from an abortion. It is not an act of shame or disgusting sin; it is a beautiful and necessary thing that is a part of women’s stories. The director Sciamma talks about this in her interview with Isabel Stevens from the Sight and Sound Magazine. “It shows how abortion is an everyday occurrence in women’s lives.” Another thing to note that I very much appreciated is that Sophie didn’t get the abortion because it was medically necessary or another significant reason like that, she simply did not want it and that was a perfect reason enough.
Another theme I loved in the movie was the absolute dedication to the female gaze. One thing that stuck out was that there was no true sex scene in the movie. The only scenes we saw were these raw and emotional scenes with Heloise and Marianne kissing before having sex or them waking up the next morning after. This truly felt like a breath of fresh air from the overly sexualized scenes of women having sex that are a million times out of ten written for men to enjoy. We can see that Sciamma made a very deliberate choice to never include a scene like this and instead appeal to what women want and feel. Women are very emotionally driven; they want to see and experience vulnerable and tender bursts of love and joy instead of scenes where their bodies are sexualized and used to arouse the male crowd. It is also important to note that just these scenes that have been included are erotic and are enough. We don’t need to see passionate scenes of two women having sex to understand their pleasure and arousal. Just these small moments of intimacy and love are enough.
Going off of this theme of the female gaze and the sexualization of women, another thing that stood out to me was the presentation of breasts. Just like there were no sex scenes, we don’t ever see the breasts in a sexual context either. We just see them. They just exist as a regular body part of a woman. Throughout the film we see both Marianne and Heloise naked and it is never seen in a sexual way or during an intimate scene. I feel this emphasizes the fact that breasts are not inherently a sexual body part despite this widespread idea that they are. Breasts have always been a body part used for childcare and pregnancy, that is their sole purpose. By showing breasts in this movie, it works to destigmatize the naked female form and instead celebrates the beauty of women just existing. This once again appeals to the female gaze and really shows a true understanding of what women want to see represented in the media.
This movie greatly represented what the female experience is like in a way that not a lot of movies have done before. It not only explores a realistic queer relationship between two women but what that might entail because they are women. I feel a lot of times queer movies don’t really show this idea of female gaze and womanhood in movies that are literally about two women that are in love, and I always feel like something is missing. No sapphic relationship can exist without the experience of being a woman built in. You cannot tell the story of two women in love and not tell the story of what it is like to be a woman. While watching this movie I never felt that something was missing or that our experiences weren’t represented. Womanhood was built into the storyline meticulously while also telling us this very vulnerable and raw love story. I loved this movie being female focused and not having any aspects of a male story or male conflict. This through many bounds shows us that women’s stories matter and are worth telling.
No man’s land: Céline Sciamma on Portrait of a Lady on Fire | Sight & Sound | BFI