Film review: Seraphine

Movie biographies can be tricky. We only get to see a fictionalized version of what has once actually been. To please the majority’s tastes, biopics often focus too much on the external instead of getting down to a character’s core. Undaunted by such constraints, Séraphine, a film directed and written by Martin Provost in 2008, which is an homage to French artist Séraphine de Senlis (Yolande Moreau), won multiple Césars, France’s version of the Oscar, although sobriety and discretion are its dominant tones. In her César-winning role as the former shepherdess and housekeeper who became a painter, Belgian actress Yolande Moreau slowly blurs the tenuous gap between artistic genius and madness. The film concentrates on the later years of devoutly Catholic Séraphine’s life in Senlis, France, where she works as a servant in the temporary home of German Avantgarde art dealer Wilhelm Uhde (Ulrich Tukur), who is impressed by her artistic ability. With Uhde’s encouragement and financial help, Séraphine receives her first group exhibition, with her work displayed alongside that of Henri Rousseau. Provost’s nuanced portrait leads us gently into the inner world of Séraphine. Through her eagerness to evolve, her sensuality and authenticity, her need for artistic expression, and her love of nature, which becomes her source of comfort and inspiration, we begin to understand how Séraphine’s vulnerability will also soon break her. Séraphine sheds light on a unique friendship between two people who exist on the fringes of society. Uhde, because of his closeted homosexuality, and Séraphine, because her social class does not allow for her eccentric behavior. She hugs trees and swims nude in the rivers where other women wash their clothes. Their friendship is broken, however, when Uhde cannot keep his promise to exhibit her work again. Distressed by the news, Séraphine meanders deliriously through the streets, where people see her dressed in a wedding gown. Diagnosed with a mental illness, she is eventually committed to the Clermont de l’Oise psychiatric hospital, where she dies alone after years of institutionalization and treatment. This aspect of the film is particularly interesting and disturbing at the same time, considering the historical period in which Séraphine’s story unfolds. Europe was not only overshadowed by the Depression, but was also entering a period of growing political extremism and intolerance. With Hitler’s rise to power, the persecution of people considered socially or racially undesirable became increasingly institutionalized. Among those persecuted by the Nazi regime were people with mental illnesses and homosexuals, although their persecution took different forms and occurred within different historical contexts. Against this backdrop, Séraphine’s isolation and vulnerability acquire an additional and unsettling significance. Provost’s mise en scène is deliberately restrained. Costumes, upholstery, and other objects are rendered in subtle, mostly pastel colors, standing in striking contrast to Séraphine’s canvases, which glow with warm and radiant hues. Many scenes are filmed outdoors in natural light, surrounded by the lush landscapes of the French countryside. The soundtrack is equally understated. Rather than relying heavily on music, Provost allows natural sounds to dominate, including the chirping of birds, the rustling of leaves, and the ringing of church bells. This restrained approach to mise en scène gives the film a quiet, contemplative quality while also emphasizing the contrast between the subdued world in which Séraphine lives and the vivid inner world expressed through her art. It ultimately reinforces Provost’s complex portrait of a socially marginalized woman whose extraordinary artistic vision exists alongside her growing vulnerability. Edited by Aparna Bakhle Ellis Managing editor of FABRIK Magazine, Los Angeles