22/05/2023 - CANNES 2023: Martin Provost dives headlong into the sweeping love story between painter Pierre Bonnard and his companion, muse and guardian angel Marthe

"I often have this strange and penetrating dream about an unknown woman who I love and who loves me too". On a par with these lines from Verlaine, slipped into the film early on, it’s a story about love and art spanning half a century which Martin Provost offers up in Bonnard, Pierre et Marthe [+see also:
trailer
interview: Martin Provost
film profile], a movie presented in the Cannes Première section of the 76th Cannes Film Festival. Infatuated with painting, as previously demonstrated by Séraphine [+see also:
trailer
film profile] in 2008, the filmmaker drew inspiration from real, historical facts in order to paint the vigorous, joyful and refreshing portrait of an atypical couple: an artist and his muse who holds the keys to their bohemian existence.

"Why is it always women who pose naked for men? – Because it’s always men who paint women." It’s 1893, we’re in Paris, and it all begins with a sketch following a chance encounter in the street between a "painter in the making" and a woman working for an artificial flower manufacturer whom the former invites to pose for him, and which swiftly results in the two of them in bed together. It’s love at first sight for Pierre Bonnard (Vincent Macaigne) and Marthe (Cécile de France), whose social backgrounds and characters are light years apart but who share the same desire for freedom: she from the pauper’s life she leads, he from middle-class conventions. But while Marthe hides her family’s existence from her lover (a sister and her “kept” children, and an elderly mother in a Parisian neighbourhood, stagnating in a maid’s room), Pierre introduces his lover to his circle of friends - the group of Nabis who want to revolutionise painting - and their patron Misia (Anouk Grinberg). It’s a world of artists in which Marthe feels wholly out of place, which she shuns and which doesn’t care for her at all, considering her "crazy" and a pure passing fancy who’s damaging Pierre’s flourishing career. But this rare and natural example of a woman actually represents an incredible opportunity for Bonnard, though living in the shadow of the painter (and his younger models) is often far from a walk in the park…

Carried by its two brilliant lead actors and divided into four parts (the early days, 1914, 1918 and 1942), Bonnard, Pierre et Marthe sidesteps most of the pitfalls found in films about artists, getting straight to the heart of the matter and focusing on the artist’s partner, whilst also striking the right distance for a close-up exploration of the work of a painter and for depicting the close circle of painters on the scene at the time (notably Claude Monet and Édouard Vuillard). The exuberant natural surrounds along the rural banks of the Seine where the couple’s little house nestles, lunches on the grass with visiting friends, and the vivacity verging on comedy, all contribute greatly to the charm of the film, which is sadly diminished by an overly long home straight and by a handful of untimely outbursts when drama rears its head.

Bonnard, Pierre et Marthe is produced by Les Films du Kiosque, in co-production with France 3 Cinéma, Volapuk and Belgium’s Umedia, with international sales falling to Memento International.

(Translated from French)