Prenez le temps de me regarder — An Open Letter To Céline Sciamma
About April last year, after having casually seen a scene that looked intriguing, I watched Portrait of a Lady On Fire not knowing a single thing about Céline Sciamma. Just like many of us, I was enormously struggling to find some peace of mind, and I was also desperately trying to keep floating while being submerged by those hateful events we all know too well.
I went for it, and little did I know how deeply It was going to affect me.
I am often terrified to write about soul-stirring movies. I like to keep the sensations to myself, worrying that if I expose them, nobody would ever understand why It touched me to that extent, making my efforts vain and letting it all be just a huge disappointment. But with this one, I simply cannot keep everything closed together and hidden inside myself because even if a lot of time has passed, I am still here struggling to comprehend and articulate my feelings about It.
Never have I been so profoundly and intimately and intensely shaken by a movie before. By a sequence of images — or rather I shall say magnificent paintings — that just fit perfectly into myself and can speak so truthfully and so genuinely about my intimacy.
I remember wondering to myself while turning in my bed late at night:
“How does this woman know how I feel and how I want to be portrayed?”
“I have no idea of who she is, and neither does she of who I am and yet, she has the audacity to paint my inner-self like that, fully exposing It to the world”.
It turns out that of course, she did know everything about it. Because she does know everything about women and love and intimacy. And how to put them on screen in the exact same way as we women think we should be shown. And therefore, she knows everything about what I look for in a person. This horizontal exchange of looks and the sharing of ideas to enrich and lovingly challenge one another. She knows how sacred and joyfully painful it is to remember what we had when It is no longer part of our daily conversation. And at the same time, how precious and rare It is to give our heart to somebody who does not put us in a box, but rather feels immense pleasure in watching us being eager and curious about the world. She knows everything about letting a person go without resentment after years of being together because cherishing the exchange and growth and everything in between we had is infinitely soothing. In fact, if It was true love, we wouldn’t be holding a grudge, what we mostly care about is our former lover’s happiness.
Céline Sciamma looks at us with fondness and affection and admiration and warmth and love. And she does not take a single thing from us that we do not want to give. She has this pure and magical touch — I would say a superpower — that brings us an intimate relief and has the ability to make us feel part of something delicate and gentle and welcoming.
The sorority that exudes from the film is so liberating and reconciling because we are never ever shown like that, simply basking in each other’s presence and being truthfully nice and caring towards one another. Instead, we’re often shown in dark and twisty or hostile situations when placed among other women. Which clearly isn’t the truth, or at least not always. With each elegant and rhythmic brushstroke, it’s almost like she is saying “I came here to save you, but I do that on my own terms”. And that involves of course art, beauty, tenderness, and pure love.
Céline Sciamma has felt an outcast for most of her life. She has felt fragile and not understood. But mostly, she has felt different.
“I’ve spent my life loving films that sometimes hated me”
I have felt different for much of my life too. I spent much of my teenage acting differently as people and contexts changed around me. I played with labels, and I simultaneously passed as the shiest girl on earth or as the boldest. But internally, I kept asking myself who I truly was and whether I would ever naturally embrace that person.
I never felt quite like I belonged somewhere. I begged my parents to make me cross oceans and fly to another continent because for years I had dreamed about starting from scratch. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the fact that I never fully fit into the ongoing discourses and schemes because there is always a part of me that feels left out.
Céline’s movies have enormously loaded me off because I now know that there’s somebody who has shared my same fragilities and can bring them to the surface in the most delicate way.
Paris, February 24th, 2017. Céline receives the César Award for Best Adaption of the stop-motion animated comedy-drama “My Life As A Courgette”. With a shuddery voice, she emphasizes the importance of portraying stories that embrace fragility and refuge. Simply and plainly she tells the audience that when something touches us deeply is because we have been missing It.
Cannes, May 25th, 2020. Céline receives the prize for Best Screenplay and with that same trembling voice, she greets the “ronde de regards collaboratifs” (round of collaborative looks) which constitute the most beautiful part of her life as a filmmaker.
Her big blue glossy eyes cut deep through with their honesty, and these two discourses include all of Céline’s cornerstones. Focusing the writing on those who have been continuously left out, and this horizontal and warm exchange of glances, which never appear scrutinizing but rather understanding and delicately comforting. Her truthful portrayal of characters stimulates introspection and self-acceptance and acts as her way to say “I see you, and I got you”.
In all honesty, I think that discovering Céline Sciamma was the most overwhelming shock I had this past year, because from that first solitary watch on that dark night of April, everything that came later was then affected by it. I discovered what feminism and being around women really are, and how to carefully distinguish between what truly reflects who I am and what instead is only a pale and hollow imitation.
After a few days of being a complete emotional wreck, when I put the pieces back together, an utterly different puzzle came out. And for once I was happy about it.
