Seraphine

Yolande Moreau as Séraphine de Senlis

Martin Provost's Séraphine is an interesting biopic of the French painter Séraphine Louis better known as Séraphine de Senlis. The film pictures her life through her interactions with her primary patron, Wilhem Uhde, a noted German critic, collector, and art dealer who also championed the works of Braque, Picasso, and Henri Rousseau. Séraphine painted vivid, colorful images of flora and fauna, at one point in the film Uhde compares her work to that of van Gogh and that seems to be apt. Because of her lack of training and mental health issues, Séraphine is often pigeonholed as an outsider artist (aren't they all), a modern primitive, an example of Art Brut or a naive artist; the latter a term Uhde disliked.  

Séraphine was orphaned at seven and trained by the local Sisters of Providence for a life of servitude. This was how Uhde found her in the town of Senlis, just north of Paris in 1914. She was eking out a meagre living as a cleaner and washerwoman. Provost stresses the hardships of her life, but also her resourcefulness. We see her Séraphine wandering the countryside on her off hours, utilizing the local flowers and plants for her pigments. Séraphine is devout in her religious beliefs. Her paintings reflect the ecstasy she feels gazing upon God's creations. Uhde is the first to recognize the vitality and passion of her work. He is eager to bring her work to wider recognition, but the First World War intervenes.

                                            

The real Séraphine

The film jumps to 1927 by which time Uhde has resettled in France with his sister and the painter Helmut Kolle, Uhde's protege and lover. Fate reunites him with Séraphine who has continued to paint, but who is having increasing trouble making ends meet as she ages. Uhde's patronage buttresses Séraphine for awhile, but her behavior becomes more and more unhinged. Uhde is desolated by his lover's death from endocarditis and cannot protect Séraphine from her wilder impulses. She takes to the streets of Senlis in a wedding dress (shades of Miss Havisham) and proceeds to leave her silver on the doorsteps of her neighbors. This lands her in an asylum which Uhde visits, but she is lost to him forever.  

Séraphine falls just short of being a masterpiece because it lacks the audacity of its subject. However, Yolande Moreau's performance as Séraphine and Ulrich Tukur's as Uhde are two for the ages, a contrast between two very different creatures united by a love of art. Séraphine was warmly received by American critics and won the César award for best picture, but has been unjustly forgotten in the intervening years. It is a small treasure that I highly recommend.