daily stream: women seeing women, and women being seen
2019’s *Portrait of a Lady on Fire* leaves BBC iPlayer in the UK soon; streaming in the US on Hulu
Did you know that I offer thematically matched streaming recommendations with each new film review? For Blue Jean, which I posted a review of earlier today, one of those recs is the glorious 2019 period romance Portrait of a Lady on Fire. I mention it again because it’s a wonderful, wonderful film, and also because in the Blue Jean mention, I omitted the fact that it is leaving BBC iPlayer at the end of this month. If you’re in the UK and don’t subscribe to any other streaming service, you may have access to iPlayer (if you pay for a TV license).
Portrait, from French filmmaker Céline Sciamma, is an extraordinary look at the secret world of women, which shouldn’t be secret because women are half of the world, except that pop culture and high culture have had and continue to have little use for women’s perspectives, and so women’s lives remain hidden. (It doesn’t matter than this story is set centuries ago. There are things depicted here that remain true today, and hidden today.) Here the two combine in a movie that is a solidly good honest romantic melodrama while also having plenty deep and dishy to say about how women’s realities are ignored and how women are literally unseen by what we are meant to deem the larger culture. This is a movie about nothing more and nothing less than women seeing and women being seen. In a more just world, I would have to say more than that to explain what makes this film so unusual, but it’s so rare for either to be true that to have both be true is a miracle.
US: stream on Hulu; rent/buy on Prime and Apple TV
UK: stream on BBC iPlayer till March 1; also stream on Mubi and Netflix; rent/buy on Prime and Apple TV, rent on Curzon Home Cinema
See Portrait of a Lady on Fire at Letterboxd for more viewing options.
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