Day: February 25, 2020

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is Incendiary

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

The review:

Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire is* a movie singularly focused on women in a way that few films are.** There is so much to see in this film, from the way the artist studies her subject surreptitiously, to the way the portrait evolves. It’s also a movie where class barriers are removed, and one that depicts a common issue most movies don’t address; by the end I felt fully immersed in these characters*** and their world.

The verdict: Recommended

Cost: $9.00
Where watched: Living Room Theaters

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*It is at this point that I want to insert my original take, texted to my friend: I have now seen Portrait of a Lady on Fire and deem it a slow burn, but very good. There I am, being punny without meaning to. This movie is not concerned about speed, but it earns its viewers’ attention with every deliberate scene.
**Where are the men in this film? I found their absence to be not at all realistic, but also a refreshing tonic. It was like my early undergraduate days, spent at a women’s college. I suspect the lack of men in this film has something to do with the fact that I first heard about this from the Online Female Film Critics 2019 awards shortlist, and heard almost nothing about it for the rest of awards season. Movies without women? Fine. Movies without men? Just not interesting to most of the people who review movies.
***I am also now curious to look up all the previous directorial efforts of Céline Sciamma, and previous movies with Noémie Merlant, Adèle Haenel and Luàna Bajrami

Question:

  • Do you think she was actually on fire, or was it a manifestation?
  • Did you see the page number thing coming?
  • Are movies that remove standard things (men, for instance) to tell their story distracting for the lack of such things, or captivating because of the removal?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

The literal translation of the original title is Portrait of the Young Girl on Fire. One suspects that “the young girl” was changed to “a lady” for the English title of the film in order to evoke the Henry James novel, The Portrait of a Lady.

Other reviews:

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Post Office Site Broadway Corridor

As mentioned before, the main USPS processing facility in Portland has moved from downtown Portland to a location by the airport. That leaves the massive space to be redeveloped. My walk over the Broadway Bridge gave me the opportunity to grab some photos before everything is dissasembled.

Here’s the official notice.

Here’s a view of the back half of the 14-acre site. This part is hemmed in by two approaches to the Broadway Bridge. I’m standing on Broadway Street and you can see NW Lovejoy on the left side of the picture.

This part of the site is mostly open, as it was where semi trucks pulled in and out. The back part of the picture shows many building built in the Pearl District over the past twenty years. Before that happened, the post office fit right in. The space was filled with warehouses, rail yards, and the like.

And here’s the view of the back half of the massive building. While the post linked to above showed the public facing part of the building, most of the space was filled with mail sorting machines.

I got to tour that space once, while being a chaparone for a class studying mail. It was so fun to see all the machines.