I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve finished watching a film for the first time and immediately turned around to rewatch it. And there’s only one film that I wish I could erase from my memory simply to watch it again for the first time. That film is Céline Sciamma’s 2019 film Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
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A visually stunning film that reimagines a timeless love story, Portrait of a Lady on Fire is brimming with slow-burn passion, classical references, relevant and modern themes with breathtaking cinematography to boot. I first saw the movie as an undergraduate film student at UNC Chapel Hill and have since watched the film at least a dozen times, each resonating as strongly as the first watch.
So I can’t help but evangelize the film — especially when it’s free to watch on Kanopy. The movie is
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