Film: Seraphine
Release date: 29th March 2010
Certificate: PG
Running time: 120 mins
Director: Martin Provost
Starring: Yolande Moreau, Ulrich Tukur, Anne Bennent
Genre: Drama/Biography
Studio: Metrodome
Format: DVD
Country: France/Germany
The opening of this film establishes, at a beautifully meditative pace, the world in which Séraphine Louis lived. Director Martin Provost not only renders a believable rural pre-war France but imbues it with the unique sensibilities of his central character. A biography focusing on the later life of French painter Séraphine de Senlis, as she was also known, whose difficult upbringing, obsessive relationship with religion and psychological illness produced work, in equal measure, fragile and fevered. The film succeeds, first and foremost, because it sensitively and tenderly paints a picture of life, as viewed through this prism.
The story opens in 1914, in a Europe whose well-tended country-house gardens and quiet villages are being drawn under the looming cloud of war. Despite this, mounting racial tensions and the staid social hierarchy, the town of Senlis is a picturesque place, where the rich retreat from Paris and the glory of nature flourishes.
A 50-year-old Séraphine (Yolande Moreau) is introduced; a hunched eccentric who divides her time between the drudgery of manual labour and her private passion, painting. Whilst working as a cleaner, in a large country house, she meets a wealthy German art collector Wilhelm Uhde. A chance encounter with one of her paintings ignites his interest, and he resolves to uncover Séraphine’s considerable body of work. However, as the climate changes and conflict engulfs this small community, he is forced to flee, leaving Séraphine to an uncertain future in a land newly occupied by German forces.
We rejoin the story in 1927, derailed somewhat by the screenplay’s only major stumbling block, as Wilhelm, accompanied by his lover Helmut Kolle and doting sister, Anne-Marie, return to Senlis. The remainder of the film concerns itself with the art collector’s reunion and reconciliation with his former protégé, her own artistic rise, and subsequent battle with mental illness…
Yolande Moreau is note-perfect as Séraphine, and despite shouldering nearly all of the screen time, she never flinches in the role. Her performance is a triumph of commitment and restraint. She inhabits the part utterly, whether she is hunchbacked and marching across gorgeously framed countryside, whispering to a canvas or bathing naked in a river. Séraphine is portrayed as somewhat inarticulate, especially when compared to the other “artistic” personalities in the film, and for the large portions of her screen time, when she remains mute, Moreau is able to communicate so much with her physicality. Her performance gives us all the empathy, compassion and raw outpourings of emotion that we need to invest in the film.
With the majority of the direction and writing focused squarely on Séraphine, the film does, in certain cases, struggle to flesh the auxiliary characters; despite some strong performances from the supporting cast. Ulrich Tukur is good as Séraphine’s some-time benefactor; Wilhelm Uhde convincingly juggles vulnerable moments as a man dealing with his taboo homosexuality, and a harder edge as a successful art dealer; and similarly good, although in a significantly smaller role, is Anne Bennent as Wilhelm’s sister Anne-Marie - her nervous energy works well when played against Tukur’s more reserved turn. Less successful are Genevieve Mnich as the overly villainous Mme Duphot and the rather flat Nico Rogner, as sickly-painter Helmut Kolle.
These are minor failings, especially when it is resolutely Séraphine’s world view that we are shown. In this context, it is forgivable that the fringe characters are underdeveloped. A considerably greater problem is the structure of the film. It is divided into two distinctly different halves, events before and after the war. The trouble is that the actions of certain characters do not make sense when they are reintroduced in 1927 - why does Wilhelm not seek out Séraphine sooner, and why is the war so strangely absent? Nothing is revealed of the protagonist’s time during the war, or indeed the following decade. It is suggested that the time has been hard for her, but it has also been a period of real artistic growth. For a film that is so concerned with sources of inspiration, and the subsequent act of creating art, it seems strange that this crucial time in Séraphine’s life goes unmapped. Perhaps this is as a result of scant historical detail, or else due to time or budget constraints, but nevertheless it is noticeable and jarring point in the film.
Ultimately these problems pale into insignificance, in a film this wonderfully realised and executed. The cinematography is subtle with occasional, beautifully-judged, flourishes of artistic flair - especially in its treatment of the paintings themselves. Similarly, the score is a measured and fitting accompaniment, drifting in and out of the scenes in melancholic refrains. In the end, however, it is Séraphine, or rather Yolande Moreau, that makes this film.
Watching a portrayal of this singular talent, played by a woman equally singular in her pursuit of the role, it captures your attention and affection throughout this hushed, minor-masterpiece.
