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MovieMail's Review
Superbly filmed, this 7 César winning portrait of French painter Séraphine Louis is a compelling study of artistic creation and perfidious celebrity. David Parkinson rates it highly indeed.
Yolande Moreau won one of the seven Césars awarded to this exceptional biopic of French artist, Séraphine Louis (1864-1942). She excels as the drudge who divides her time between gracelessly skivvying around the small town of Senlis and furtively gathering the ingredients she needs for her art. Essentially an outcast, she goes unnoticed as she communes with nature in the verdant fields and gleans the soil, animal blood and candle wax that she mixes into the paints for her gloriously distinctive images of flowers and fruit.
Local connoisseur Madame Duphot (Geneviève Mnich) considers Séraphine subnormal. But German dinner guest Wilhelm Uhde (Ulrich Tukur), who is leasing rooms she cleans, spots one of her pictures and becomes her patron. Having already been an early champion of Picasso and Rousseau, he promises to introduce her to the Parisian art establishment. But the Great War intervenes and Uhde is surprised to discover Séraphine is still working when he returns to Senlis many years later. However, the temptations and pressures of sudden fame go to Séraphine's head and she struggles to understand Uhde's reluctance to fund her increasingly lavish lifestyle as the economic situation deteriorates.
This is a compelling study of deceptive appearances, perfidious celebrity and excruciating isolation. As a homosexual forced to suppress his emotions, Uhde clearly sees the despised Séraphine as a kindred spirit. But her naive style reflects her approach to life and by placing so much trust in the outward symbols of acceptance, she lays herself open to soul-crushing disappointment.
Laurent Brunet's cinematography and Thierry François's production design are superb and the filming of the French countryside around Senlis is extraordinarily beautiful. Director Martin Provost also solicits a magnificent performance from Moreau, who manages to be deeply moving as she transforms from being a free spirit who works into the night singing hymns at the top of her voice into a needy prima donna who is paralysed by a confused sense of entitlement and self-worth.
A multiple award-wining French drama based on the true story of French primitive painter Seraphine de Senlis.
In 1914, celebrated German art critic and collector Wilhelm Uhde decides to rent an apartment in the small French town of Senlis, north of Paris, in order to write and have a break from city life. When he spots a small painting in the drawing room of his landlady, Madame Duphot, he is amazed to discover that it is the work of none other than her cleaning lady, the rough, plain and somewhat emotionally unhinged Seraphine (Yolande Moreau). Uhde immediately insists on seeing the rest of Seraphine's paintings, and before long a major new talent is introduced into the rarefied world of 20th-century European art.
