Customer Reviews

Seraphine

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A sad tale of the life of this wondrous artiste and her descent into mental illness. People around me, in a theatre, were openly crying. The acting was nothing short of Superb and the filming and scenes rare in movies today. Wish I could give it more than the Five stars!

Absorbing and beautifully made film with a compelling performance by Yolande Moreau as early 20th-century French painter Seraphine Louis. In addition to the many comments already made here by other appreciative viewers, I would add that the length of the film (2 hours) affords ample opportunity to represent the role of a single, working class woman in France during the period, 1910s-1920s. As a housekeeper and laundrywoman, paid little for her services and regarded typically with disdain by the more moneyed people for whom she works, Seraphine could easily have stepped from the pages of a Victor Hugo novel. The pastoral scenes, the great houses, the cobbled streets, and the costuming represent a world and a social order lingering on from the previous century.

The film makes clear the lot of one born poor and female into such a world. The work required to keep soul and body together is endless, grueling, and mind-numbing. Anyone else would drop from exhaustion at the end of such a day, yet with renewed energy drawn from her angelic forces and a deep love of the woods and fields, Seraphine is somehow able to paint by candlelight at night. While some viewers familiar with her story may find the film slow, what it wants us to care about is the hopelessness of a woman in her social position. Without the kindness of a handful of others and the chance discovery of her artistic gifts by a visiting German art critic and collector, Wilhelm Uhde, she would have disappeared into oblivion and all her breathtakingly inspired paintings with her.

The film also emphasizes her isolation. It underscores this theme with the parallel story of Uhde, who for unexplained reasons has retreated to this rural French town from his life in Germany. There are allusions to his homosexuality (the "blemish" of the film mentioned by another reviewer), but the film suggests that there is a connection here to his taking refuge far from what would be the center of his professional life in Berlin. A story Seraphine reveals of a long-lost love shows the two as similar in their sorrows and losses, each of them alone in the world. This is a lovely, meditative film. Without the narrative force of a Hollywood-style biopic to drive it forward and hold interest, you have to meet it half-way, but accepted on its own terms, it does not disappoint.

Seraphine is a magnificent film of what was to me an unknown French artist,Seraphine Louis,an impoverished cleaner,who was an extraordinary naïve painter.Self-taught,inspired by her religious faith,she had an inner compulsion to express divinely inspired visions through painting,reflections of a psyche walking a tightrope between ecstasy and mental illness.Alongside her arduous day jobs,Seraphine(Yolande Moreau) painted by candlelight,largely in secret isolation,until her considerable body of work was discovered by William Uhde(Ulrich Tukur),German art collector,who was mesmerized.

For most of her life, Séraphine painted in total obscurity, scrimping together enough money from the various types of menial labor on which she subsisted to buy a few art supplies. She mixed these with pigments of her own devising, colors distilled from plant and animal sources familiar to Séraphine from years of tending flocks and other outdoor work. These vibrant colors, which struck Uhde's eye as so unusual, are one of the hallmarks of her work. The subject of almost all of her paintings is the flora of the region where she lived, generally viewed from close up and refracted through the bizarre lens of Séraphine's inner vision. She claimed that heavenly voices directed her to paint, visions that later became delusions strong enough to land her in a mental asylum in Clermont, where she died after a long incarceration. These plants, often dotted and striped like caterpillars or other insects, seem to quiver with life, making them seem more like the fauna of a psychotic landscape.

His support had barely begun to lift her horizons when he was forced to leave France in August 1914; the war between France and Germany had made him an unwelcome outsider in Senlis, much as Séraphine was, given her eccentric persona. They only reestablished contact in 1927 when Uhde - back in France and living in Chantilly - visited an exhibition of local artists in Senlis and, seeing Séraphine's work, realized that she had survived and her art had flourished. Under Uhde's patronage, Séraphine began painting large canvases as large as two meters high, and she achieved prominence as the naïve painter of her day. In 1929, Uhde organized an exhibition,"Painters of the Sacred Heart," that featured Séraphine's art, launching her into a period of financial success she had never known - and was ill prepared to manage. Then, in 1930, with the effects of the Great Depression destroying the finances of her patrons, Uhde had no choice except to stop buying her paintings.

In 1932, Séraphine was admitted for "chronic psychosis" to the psychiatric ward of a geriatric hospital at Clermont, where her artistry found no outlet. Although Uhde reported that she had died in 1934, Séraphine actually lived until 1942 in a hospital annex at Villers-sous-Erquery, where she died friendless and alone[. (Some sources still state she died in 1934.) She was buried in a common grave.Yolande Moreau's performance touches the heart, witness the scene in the special asylum when she touches the chair on the balcony of her room.Ulrich Tukur(Lives of Others) is superb as Uhde. If I have one criticism it's that I thought many of the interior scenes were too darkly lit,although this enhances realism,I couldn't see the paintings with enough clarity.A winner of 7 French Academy awards,with best actress and best picture.

"Seraphine" is the true story of Seraphine Louis (Yolande Moreau, Winner of the 2009 Best Actress Award by National Society of Film Critics and The Los Angeles Film Critics Association)a simple and profoundly devout housekeeper who in 1905 at age 41, began painting brillantly colorful canvases. In 1912, a German art critic (Ulrich Tukur, "The Lives of Others") discovered her paintings while she was working for him as his maid. The film tells the story of the relationship between the avant-garde delaler and the visionary cleaning lady forging a testament to the mysteries of creativity and the resilience of one woman's spirit. "Seraphine" was the winner of 7 Cesar Awards (The French Academy Award) including Best Film, Best Actress and Best Screenplay. The Rotten Tomatoes rating is 89% based on 84 reviews.

A masterpiece of film..visually powerful and deeply tender..an amazing true story told with deepest respect and reverence not only for Serpahine but for the art dealer who discovered, supported and represented her with such kindness and affection. The early scenes of her life before Edouard found her are especially moving..transcending her poverty through her love of flowers and trees, scraping together what money she could to buy the costly ingredients to prepare her own pigments and paints. In some ways it is a universal story of how art emerges and emanates through an individual. Seraphine,perhaps, didn't choose art..art chose her.

It is a wonderful film - with wonderful filming and a wonderful interpretation by Yolande Moreau as Seraphine Louis!
The colors are important not only in Seraphine's paintings but in the filming as well. You really get to understand how hard life was for her. And yet she was able to use the nights to paint wonderful paintings.
The film made an enormous impact on me, I felt really worn-out after the film finished, so many emotions were to be handled. Tears and some comic, understanding the tragedy and the beauty of her life.
Highly recommended!

Séraphine de Senlis - born Séraphine Louis (1864- 1942) - may not be a painter well known to the entire art world today, but the story of her life makes a compelling film. Writer Marc Abdelnour and writer/director Martin Provost have extracted all of the significant aspects of Séraphine Louis' life and have created a work of art as a film, much in the style of the way she created her life in art.

Séraphine Louis (Yolande Moreau) was born in 1864 in Arcy to a poor family and worked as a shepherdess until 1881 when she accepted the position as a domestic worker for the Sisters of Providence in Clermont: her life with the nuns enhanced her profoundly religious approach to her personal philosophy. In 1901 she left the convent, in part due to a communication with her angel that she must paint, to become a housekeeper for middle class families in Senlis. In her quiet manner she scrubbed floors and did laundry by day, using the pittances of income to procure some supplies so that she could paint her images of fruits, flowers, and leaves by candlelight at night in her tiny room. Self taught, she used pigment from strange sources - blood from the butcher, melted wax from the votives at the cathedral, pollen from the flowers of the fields, her only 'purchased' component was gesso and white paint from the artist supply shop in Senlis.

In 1914 the German art collector and critic Wilhelm Uhde (Ulrich Tukur) took a room in the house owned by Mme Duphot (Geneviève Mnich), one of the houses where Séraphine worked, and when Wilhelm discovered a painting by Séraphine he immediately recognized a painter of great promise and provided Séraphine with the first response to her artistic efforts. Wilhelm and Séraphine became friends and Wilhelm bought all of her art, insisting that she devote her time to creating art instead of scrubbing floors. With the backing of a collector and friend, Séraphine began painting in earnest, showing locally and selling art under Wilhelm's sponsorship, until 1914 when with WW I breaking out, Wilhelm had to flee France, leaving behind his collection of paintings as well as the close bond the two had formed. Mistakenly Séraphine thought Wilhelm's departure was to marry his roommate Anne-Marie (Anne Bennett), only to discover that Anne-Marie was Wilhelm's sister and fellow supporter of Séraphine: Wilhelm informed her he would never be able to marry a woman.

Séraphine continued painting as she lead her eccentric life in Senlis and in 1927 Wilhelm returned to France with his paramour - young painter Helmut Kolle (Nico Rogner) who suffered from tuberculosis - rediscovers Séraphine's art in a local Senlis exhibition, and realizes that she had survived and her art had flourished. Under Wilhelm's patronage, Séraphine began painting large canvases as large as two meters high, and she achieved prominence as the naïve painter of her day. In 1929, Wilhelm organized an exhibition, 'Painters of the Sacred Heart', that featured Séraphine's art, launching her into a period of financial success she had never known - and was ill prepared to manage. Then, in 1930, with the effects of the Great Depression destroying the finances of her patrons, Wilhelm had no choice except to stop buying her paintings. Séraphine's spending habits cause concern and in 1932 her psychotic behavior resulted in placement in the psychiatric ward in Clermont hospital where she spent the rest of her days, alone and without friends or admirers of her gift of art.

The simplicity of the manner in which this story is related with very little dialogue, atmospheric scenery as captured by cinematographer Laurent Brunet, and a musical score by Michael Galasso that combines sacred chants with idiomatic instrumental music of French ancestry. Yolande Moreau glows with a special radiance as the simple, spiritual, artistically driven Séraphine and Ulrich Tukar is the perfect balance as his own driven, unique 'first true collector'. This film is a little masterpiece and one that deserves the attention of everyone who cares about the lives of artists and the emergence of genius from strange vessels. Grady Harp, July 10

This features several actors from current French cinema, including the lead.

The story is absolutely amazing, especially given the fact that it is mostly true.

POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT - IF YOU DON'T ALREADY KNOW THE TRUE STORY

This is an unusual, slow-paced and absorbing biopic about Seraphine Louis, a poorly-educated and deeply religious single woman living in the town of Senlis in eastern France in the first decades of the 20th century. Despite great adversity, Seraphine eventually became a highly regarded `naïve' artist of some renown whose work had a distinctive style and is now featured in any comprehensive history of 20th century art.

Written and directed by Martin Provost (Cocoon, Le Ventre de Juliette) `Seraphine' won a number of French Film Academy awards. Yolande Moreau plays the somewhat eccentric but deeply sympathetic Seraphine to perfection, creating a complex and secretive character whose private life and motivations are slowly uncovered as the film progresses. The hard, unglamorous life of a poorly educated single woman in the early 20th century is portrayed very well, where every sous she earns from laborious hours as a domestic cleaner is needed for food and to buy the materials from which she manufactures her own paints - also using the wax from votive candles taken from the church, animal blood from the butcher and pigments pressed from wild flowers she gathers. Driven by an inner passion and religious fervour, she paints at night in the privacy of her rented room, by candlelight, and shows her paintings to no-one. Even the viewer is not shown the paintings until well into the film.

The story of the discovery of Seraphine's extraordinary paintings by German art critic Wilhelm Uhde is brilliantly told. Being German, he has to flee France in the summer of 1914 but returns 10 years later. Eventually, by accident, he finds Seraphine again, begins to champion her work and bring it to international attention.

Life did not end happily for the eccentric and child-like Seraphine. Psychiatric instability - possibly a causative factor in her extraordinary artistic visions and the driving energy behind her painting - eventually led to her detention and incarceration. Uhde continued to care for her welfare and ensured she had the maximum comfort possible with a private room and access to the garden, but she never left institutional care and died in 1942.

This is a touching true story, and a very good (if not exactly `feel-good') film. The dialogue is not too wordy, so for non-French speakers reading the subs is no problem. The cinematography is beautiful and overall it's a quality piece of work with serious and unusual subject matter. For me, it drops a star only because of the rather downbeat ending to what was ultimately a rather tragic story. Nevertheless, highly recommended viewing: it's a pity high-quality European films like this get such limited distribution outside their home market.

Based on the true story of the naïve painter Seraphine de Senlis , whose dowdy aspect as a cleaning lady, simply dazzles to the eyes of a German art collector, Wilhelm Uhde, who encourages her to find her bliss, although she doesn't seem to be quite convinced about her own talent.

Martin Prevost built a sumptuous, touching and hauntingly minimalist movie with restrained images, peaceful rhythm, a propos the narrative pulse of the great masters of the cinema (specially Robert Bresson).

It should not surprise ourselves this film has deserved all the possible honors as Best Film, Best Actress, Best screenplay, Best music, Best Photography, Best artistic Direction and Best Wardrobe in the maxim French Festival after Cannes, The Caesars.

Yolande Moreau is simply out of this world with this marvelous performance, probably one of the five top of this year.

High level author cinema. A touching masterwork all the way through.