Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Spoiler Alert)

The 2019 movie, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, is a stunning representation of deprived destiny and lost love.

Centered around a wondrous coastal landscape in Brittiany in the late 1700s, the story centers on two young French women—Marianne, an artist and painter, and Heloise, recently cloistered in a convent and brought home to enter an arranged marriage. Her sister, who was supposed to marry the man, had killed herself by jumping off a cliff into the sea. Heloise is to take her place.

Heloise, however, has no interest in the marriage and is angry that her mother has placed her in the arrangement. As was the custom then, a portrait was to be made of the bride-to-be and sent to the groom to approve of his future wife. But Heloise refused to sit for a portrait and had already chased off a painter frustrated by the experience.

Enter Marianne. Brought in as simply a companion for Heloise until the marriage was finalized, her real purpose was to get to know Heloise and from snippets of memory paint her in secret so a portrait could be produced.

There is a scene early in the women’s acquaintance where they are out walking near the cliffs with the ocean below. Heloise darts off running full speed and Marianne, startled and fearful she will follow her sister in death, runs after her. Heloise sprints to the edge of the cliff and stops. She turns and says, “I’ve dreamt of that for years.” Breathless, Marianne says, “Dying?” And Heloise says, “Running.”

It is a metaphor for the rest of the movie.

For most of us, life is not a straight line. Few of us ever really know who we want to be or what we want to do. Often life takes us places that end up choosing for us. As time goes by, we find ourselves running from something or to something not really knowing what that is.

In the film, Marianne and Heloise fall in love. But in the strictly patriarchal society of their time where men oversaw everything, and intimate relationships were only intended to be between a man and a woman, their love has no real future.

Yet, their affection for each other is so tender and genuine, and softly seductive, that it creates an ache in watching it knowing how forbidden it is. To see such a deeply personal romance unfold, only to be soon ended by the moral rules and conventional censure of their day is profoundly instructive.

The film reminds us how in our own time love is too often defined by arbitrary barriers. When in truth, love has no human boundaries in terms of sexual identity. Obviously, I am talking about adult relationships outside of family. When shared honestly, respectfully, and equally, they can become something beautiful, even holy.

Marianne and Heloise were running from the stifling mores of their culture and their time in history, just as they were running toward each other. Genuine love cannot be forever confined or prohibited. It can break away and have its momentary meaning, as was the experience of these two young women.

Marianne finished the portrait capturing the essence of Heloise’s beauty and strength. The two eventually part ways. Heloise goes off to fulfill the arranged marriage. Marianne leaves to become a skilled painter and art teacher.

Running eventually has a destination, and if not our destiny, at least a place where love still has a chance.

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