Lovestruck: When Portrait of a Lady on Fire taught us to remember, and not regret
With Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel in the lead roles, the period romantic drama is directed by Céline Sciamma
Last Updated: 05.07 PM, Feb 18, 2022
When Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire came out in 2019, the whole world seemed to be talking about the French romantic drama. What Portrait of a Lady on Fire offered its viewer was the biggest reason for this. Every single person who left the theatre or later watched it at the comfort of their homes were left with a message - “Remember. Don’t Regret”.
Set in France in the late 18th century, the story follows Marianne (Noémie Merlant), a painter who arrives on a distant island in Brittany, after she is commissioned to paint a portrait of a young woman of the gentry named Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), who is to be married off to a Milanese nobleman. From the offset, the film beautifully converses with the audience using a cinematic language that is fabricated with the help of an intuitive setting, drenching music and the female gaze.
Apart from all the grandeur in filmmaking, Portrait of a Lady on Fire was also able to tackle the hearts of the viewer, a feat that only a handful of films have done. The romantic drama saw Héloïse and Marianne soon fall in love with each other, exploring each other’s bodies and souls, with the full knowledge that this too shall soon come to a crashing end, much like the waves that constantly crash into their beach. While Sciamma was able to hardwire scenes like when the song “La Jeune Fille en Feu” breaks out, into the minds of the viewer for a long time, the line “Don't regret. Remember” is one of the many lines from the film that stays close to your heart.
Lying on the bed talking about their feelings, Héloïse says she feels something new, which is regret, to which Marianne says, “Don't regret. Remember.” While their regret was about not having spent more time with each other or not having kissed one another earlier, the line could mean a lot of different things to a viewer who has gotten the rough end of love. Love is a confusing feeling and often, is not all roses and rainbows. It could also be dark, heartbreaking and regretful. But what Sciamma’s Portrait of the Lady on Fire teaches us is to not regret, but remember what it had been. Be it a heartbreaking breakup or a toxic relationship, there are always lessons you can take home if you remember and not regret.
While the filmmaker called her work “manifesto about the female gaze,” which it was, the film was also able to captivate the viewer into a love story that had a more than tragic ending. But in hindsight, one question that the film leaves out to the viewer is, “Did Héloïse regret not turning back?”. While the answer to this is unknown, like much of life’s little unanswered questions, the film in particular backs up a reasoning for her actions. Replacing regret with remembrance could be the answer to her problems.
Regret has a way of eating into you when something goes south in a relationship of any kind, and this could be a reason for many disasters in one's life to follow. But remembering, and cherishing the good times and learning from the bad times and simply learning to stop regretting could be an answer to your problems if you think you’ve failed in love.
Céline Sciamma’s French romantic drama that teleports you into the 1800s and shows you love and life from the gaze of a female is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video. And when you finish watching the film with teary eyes and a heavy heart, compose yourself and ask yourself, “What is stopping me from not regretting and just remembering?”