This movie is a tribute to nostalgia, the seaside wind, the reed bush and the fire that is creating and destroying everything.
Surveillance
The absence of males is intriguing our curiosity in the movie, the world is made and operated by the female. When we talking about the "Surveillance", we will mention the "male's gaze", in the sexual sphere, male as the so-called "controller" who can use their power to regulating the female and let them under the surveillance. This concept is derivated from the binary and the hierarchy system which thinks the male is in the dominant place and the female is submissive, so the male has the right and duty to surveillance the female and lets them obey the male's willingness. But this nun style movie betrays the binary-power construction-- the mother takes the position and sits on the top of the hierarchy. She is charging everything in the house and everyone must follow, so the tragedy of the sister's suicide and the miserable wedding are the vicious price of the family. The portrait of the hostess is a fuse to let the females on the same stage, the painter's coming is not stop in her own artic filed but have ordered the extra work is to help the mother to surveillance the hostess. The servent is the third party act as the secret keeper but also helps the mother to observe her daughter.
This is the power mode of the family, the male's absence makes the family as a queen's kingdom, the mother on the top of the hierarchy have a god perspective to surveillance everyone in the game, she is the motor of the family and also the root of the tragedy. So when she left for some days the inanimate house convert to a paradise immediately.
Body
A female portrait another female look a little wired when we first at a glance of the movie, because in the history of art, only male can hold the privilege to portrait the female and never vice versa. Like the painter said that it's obscene to draw a male's body by a female at that time. The female who wants to be an artist would be confronted by a lot of obstacles, so the female artist in the pre-modern epoch has a very narrow career path and lots of restrictions pushed to them. At this point, the movie had a great exploration to let the female's body be seen by the same tribe's members.
Even though it's a lesbian theme, but rarely seen the erotic element in their interaction. The "see" and "be seen" reach to the harmony, it's not a species curious about anther and used the color eyes on them or maybe have the ambition to conquer them. It's about equal communication from the surface to the inner heart, equal exploration to each other's body, equal companion from day to night.
Although they are from different social stratum, the admiration from the body to the heart is united more and more tightly. The body is not only be seen but also be felt, be explored, be understood. The more they know their body the more they can help others, so we can see the servant be helped and be portraited also. It's an equal flesh and spirit world that the three different backgrounds and stratum females can share the literature time in the candle's glimmer light, can help each other to come through the period time. their body and mentality are on the same page when they realize their body shouldn't be regulated by the surveillance and possessed by the male.
Utopia
Like the other LGBTQ films such as <call me by your name>,<L'ornithologue>,<L'Inconnu du lac>,<God's own country>, this movie also chose a relatively isolate time-space to tell the story. The house as a metaphor as the paranoid prison in which the mother arranged the servant and painter to detective her daughter's daily life but also an ecstatic utopia cram of freedom and pleasure when the mother left. It's a pure paradise for these girls to learn how to love and be truly themself. The house like a laboratory and the mother's absence is the catalyst for the girls to do the experiment of love.
But utopia always the utopia, it comes by accident and fleet away quickly, it's vulnerable to resist the social mainstream norms, the hostess's sister is the example of this kind of sacrifice. When the portrait be finished finally is the time they mingle each other intricately and also the time they would go back to their normal life eventually.
Love is selfish so when the masterpiece born the alarm to destroy it is ringing. All this comes to an end as a transaction when the mother paid the money for the painter and their's romantic relationship proclaim to finish. Destroy all this into ruin is the monogamy and hierarchy of the family, the phenomenon of homosexuality is restrained by social recognition due to the ignorance or the religious faith. So homosexuality only can be accepted when the surveillance is away periodically.
The European author movie's camera language is appreciated by the audience. Like this one, the movie's textual and color like a classic oil painting masterpiece, the camera's motion like a process of writing a poem. The camera is more than narrative but generating a strong sense of aesthetics. This is a gift, Immersing ourselves at the same pace with the actors and make a sense of everyone's shadow in the movie. Happy woman's day and this movie also contribute to the woman's independence and the female's rights.
