Séraphine

Séraphine works as a cleaner in Senlis. She goes to houses, washes floors, does laundry. In the evening she comes home and paints. She makes her own paint; mixtures from church candles, earth, blood and plants, and she tells the recipe to nobody. Nobody knows her pictures. A German art critic called Wilhelm Uhde moves to the town and hires her to clean. One day he sees one of her paintings at a neighbour's. War breaks out and Uhde has to leave the country. Years later he returns and looks for her. Martin Provost directs. Yolande Moreau plays Séraphine and Ulrich Tukur plays Uhde. It is a French, Belgian and German co-production. The film won seven Césars including best film; Yolande Moreau was named best actress. Séraphine Louis was a real painter; she is placed in the naive tradition and her works are in museums. Wilhelm Uhde was real too; a collector who supported names such as Picasso and Rousseau early on. The matter it treats is the price of being discovered; as the attention grows Séraphine's condition worsens. The film shows the process of painting in detail; preparing the paint and the way she works are the narrative's material. Séraphine spent the last years of her life in an asylum and the film does not soften it. Its limit is pace; the narrative is very slow and there is little event. Who it is for: viewers who like biographies of artists and quiet French drama. Who it is not for: it is slow, the ending heavy, and the dramatic tension low.