Can Desire be Subversive?
Some audience members might say that Portrait of a Lady on Fire isn’t so revolutionary : after all, there have been tons of films made recently on queer and female subjectivity. What’s so special about this one?
I found the film to be quite scorching. The cinematography-- although it captures nothing but calming blue seas, muddy landscapes, and the dull interiors of an aristocratic household-- made me feel restless from the get-go. There is an unquiet, defiant presence lurking beneath the quietest moments in the film. Some would call this presence desire, but I’d call that an understatement.
I loved the fact that the film had very little male presence: in 18th century France, the interiors of female oppression had an almost caged quality, and this was a space overwhelmingly occupied by women.
Yes, the protagonists occupy a world where defiance to patriarchal norms had its limitations: Héloïse had to marry, Marianne had to exhibit her paintings under her father’s name. But in a world where authority rules with flagrant cruelty, defiance to order is carried out with quiet subversion. Even if denied visibility, desire exists, burning everything in its wake. The ending was a case in point, where the crescendo of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons illustrated the subversive quality of this desire-- it exists, despite being brushed under the carpet: it exists, and sometimes, that is defiant enough.
