"equality"
There are a lot of details on the setting, which can't be seen at first glance, but it's actually the director's intention. For example, Marianne and Eloise are about the same height, about the same age, and about the same social status. Why set this up? I think the director wants to build an idealized love, including the setting of no male characters in this film, so as to exclude the interference of various social and psychological factors on the relationship itself.
"The Deconstruction of Subject-Object Relationships"
It is generally believed that there is an unequal power relationship between the painting and the painted. The painter's gaze between the models is a single arrow, and the models have no room to play. But in the middle of the film, the director deconstructs this conventional perception with a special perspective.
Marianne smugly stated what she observed about Eloise's mannerisms, and Eloise, in turn, recounted Marianne's mannerisms. It turns out that this gaze is always two-way.
Not only that, when Heloiz saw the first painting that Marianne painted, she did not buy it, thinking it was a lifeless work, so that Marianne destroyed the painting out of self-esteem. In short, the model (Eloise) does not exist as a passive object, but indirectly affects artistic creation, realizing the transformation from object to subject.
"Two"
Throughout the film, there are probably two scenes where this concept is mentioned.
The first scene is a conversation between Marianne and Eloise's mother. The two talked about some funny things, and the mother said, "Thanks to you" (probably what it meant, I don't remember exactly). Marianne was confused, "I obviously didn't say anything." The mother explained that "only two people can talk and laugh".
The second scene is the conversation between Marianne and Eloise. Marianne tells Eloise that she can go out by herself tomorrow (dog head). Heloiz asked, "Does freedom mean loneliness?" The next day, Heloiz came back and answered yesterday's question by himself, "In loneliness, I feel the freedom you said, and I also feel your love for I am indispensable."
Needless to say, in the second scene, there is more ambiguity, but if we connect the two scenes, we will find that there seems to be more than that. The director also wants to emphasize the connection between people. A person is indeed free, but also lonely, only two people can talk, laugh, and have fun.
"Embroidery" and "The Myth of Orpheus"
During the narrative process, the director would occasionally show the maid embroidering the flowers. With the deepening of the relationship between the two, and then to the separation, the flower has also undergone a transformation from blooming to withering. The maid's embroidery can always be preserved and bloom. This also corresponds to the "Orpheus mythology" mentioned in the middle, which is "the poet's choice" rather than "the lover's choice". Although the reality of love is irreversible, the memory of love can be preserved for a long time, and reality and memory are intertwined, highlighting the beauty of regret.
“Turn around“
It's still "Orpheus mythology", the answer given by Eloise is "Turn around", and she herself does so in reality. At the moment when Marianne is about to open the door, she stops her, Let her go back. And that scene of Eloise wearing white gauze has also become Marianne's "Rosebud", a picture that haunts her for a long time. The unfolding of the whole story is based on Marianne's memories, so before, Marianne kept seeing Eloise in white gauze, which was her own addition to her memory.
I forgot where I watched it. The director himself said that this design is because people can't forget the last scene of seeing each other after love is gone.
"Small summary"
To be honest, I don't really like comparing this movie to CMBYN, except that some elements are present in both (playing the piano, crying at the end), these are two completely different movies.
The emotional performance of CMBYN mainly relies on the setting of the scene and the background music, while "Portrait of a Burning Woman" mainly relies on the lines and the performance of the actors. (This is not to say that the CMBYN actors are not good at acting, but the acting in Burning Women is more effective in comparison).
And from the above analysis, it can be seen that "Portrait of a Burning Woman", as a feminist film, wants to express more things, while CMBYN is a very pure love film.
However, "Portrait of a Burning Woman" and CMBYN's touching points have something in common. LGBTQ movies are more delicate in expression than BG movies due to their own particularity, and the ambiguous and tentative elements are greatly enlarged. Therefore, whether it is straight or curved, male or female, it is easy to have empathy.
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