A woman jumps into a choppy sea to rescue the box of painting equipment that has fallen overboard. We form an image of her in our minds — an image that is not just of what we have seen with our eyes, but one where we see how attached she is to her art, and also how irreplaceable the equipment must be. We get to know a little more about the woman, Marianne, than we have been shown.

This is just one example of how Céline Sciamma’s magnificent 2019 film, Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Portrait de la jeune fille en feu), guides us to understand how the act of seeing and memorialising functions. The professional act of working on a commissioned portrait of another woman, Héloïse, asks us to ponder what it is that gets represented when we frame a living person in an image.

When Marianne draws the first perfectly good portrait, she follows the rules of portraiture faithfully. But the subject, Héloïse, is not impressed. She questions what good a painting is that merely represents the external truth. After they have gotten to know each other as friends, why does the portrait not do a better job of representing the person behind the visage?

One reason could be that this painting is intended for the gaze of a third party entirely unknown to the two women, and unseen through the film. This is the intended groom for Héloïse, for whom this portrait is being commissioned in the manner of a pre-modern matrimonial photograph. Neither the artist nor the subject is being served; neither is being satisfied.

By being critically observant, the artist can identify and include the subject’s mannerisms and quirks. They can start reading inner thoughts through outer actions, like the biting of a lip or the tightening of the grip. A new layer of meaning is added, which makes a painting more personal. This is meaning that can only be shared by a few close people, those who know how to read the cues.

Finally, if the artist and the subject are entwined souls, as they indeed become during the course of this film, they can communicate to each other through cues that leave the entire rest of the world out, even in plain sight. Showing a particular page number of a particular book included in a portrait means everything to two individuals, and nothing to anyone else.

When first introduced to Héloïse, the viewer is purposefully given only partial glimpses — only from the back, only the face, only the eyes, and so on. Like an artist we are asked to consider every part of her carefully, in isolation at first. Sometimes we see her in darkness, sometimes in blinding light.

How would we choose to represent her if we were to paint her portrait? Indoors in a studio or outdoors next to a bonfire at night? Smiling or frowning? Does the subject even need to be present for the painting? Is it correct that the artist chooses the representation and not the subject? Can a representation be unjust even though it is visually perfect?

When Marianne and Héloïse share a bed, does that change the portrait? When they witness a painful surgery together, does that change the portrait? When they get high together, then?

Experience flows into a painting because it is an artist’s lifetime of experiences that guides their hands and their choices. Typically when we look at a centuries old portrait we know more about the artist than the subject. What do we know about Mona Lisa? Not even her real name. What do we know about Leonardo da Vinci? So does only the artist’s experience find a place in the final work, or is that the only side retained in public memory?

Memories are also portraits. How we remember someone, what we remember about them, at what point in their lives — these are all paintings we have made in our mind. Even a smell, taste, or sound we associate with them can be a painting in our minds. Faced with the impending end of their brief association, Héloïse says she feels regret, to which Marianna responds, “Ne regrettez pas. Souvenez–vous.” (“Don’t regret. Remember.”) Memory is much more than just one emotion, it uses many colours, so when you relive a moment, or moments, you feel much more than merely the singular tone of regret.

So we see Héloïse moved to tears when she hears a piece of Vivaldi’s music (where incidentally the composer is also painting a picture, but using notes) because Marianne played it for her years ago. We know she is not just listening, but seeing with the music. Sight is also sound, is also smell, is also taste, is also touch.

An honest conversation is a painting where every line spoken to each other is a brush stroke through which we compose an image of the other. That’s why talking helps overcome prejudice. When Marianne and Héloïse know the portrait is near completion a wound is cut open in their relationship and it risks changing their memories forever. By talking, by reconciling, they ensure that the memory remains just.

But is the portrait actually over, or as Marianne suggests of all art, merely stopped at the necessary time? That is also true of their relationship — it wasn’t over, it just stopped because it had to.

For a period film (set in the eighteenth century) the film is stark. None of the embellishments of set design and costume that abound in other carefully crafted period films are present here. The characters, of which there are very few, wear the same clothes every day, and the mansion they live in has almost no furniture. This may be meant to convey something socio-economical, in fact it almost certainly does, but it is also to force our eyes to stay on the characters, and particularly so on their faces. Our gaze is being directed, very methodically, which is almost a forgotten feeling amidst the onslaught of many other films that try to divert and confuse your vision.

We, the viewers of the film, are consuming many images — film is, after all, a medium of many moving images. Are we also moved by these images? If we were to see the painting, ‘Portrait of A Woman On Fire’ in a gallery or museum somewhere, could we possibly momentarily feel that we were there when it was being composed? Maybe it would stir in our hearts some forgotten passion, some friendship, or some regret. Our heart would also twinge a little, and in that moment we would be reminded of a lost love, only for the realisation to come rushing in that it was only a film we had seen, not reality.

And yet, we know that some films settle in our minds so firmly that they are indistinguishable from memories of what we have actually lived through. Reality becomes dream, and dreams become reality. Some books, some music, also captivate us similarly. To borrow from the visionary song-writer Paul Simon, “A vision softly creeping left its seeds while I was sleeping. And the vision that was planted in my brain still remains within the sound of silence.”