Séraphine

Film Review by James Campbell | 21 Oct 2009
Film title: Séraphine
Director: Martin Provost
Starring: Yolande Moreau, Ulrich Tukur
Release date: 27 Nov
Certificate: PG

In the town of Senlis, 1914, a middle-aged cleaning lady and washerwoman spends her free moments collecting brush and seeds, animal blood and church candle-oil, and communing with nature to inspire her painting. By chance, German critic and collector, Wilhelm Uhde, comes to lodge at a house she cleans. So begins the long but deeply troubled relationship between artist and patron. Repeatedly, turns of fate throw up seemingly insurmountable obstacles: Séraphine Louis seems to suffer some form of autism, eventually descending into schizophrenic dementia. And then there's the war. What is most fascinating in Martin Provost's film about the celebrated neo-primitivist is neither Yolande Moreau's singular, magnificent performance nor Laurent Brunet's elegant cinematography, but simply the sense of wonder it engenders in her painting. Viscerally imagining the artistic process, Provost helps unlock the meaning latent in these bustling, verdant works (alternately described by witnesses as 'in terrifying motion' and as 'fleshy wounds'). Séraphine demands patience, but is exquisitely affecting. [James Campbell]