Summary and Background
Maxim Ford and Pau Ros directed and co-wrote the 2017 film Picture of Beauty, a British independent romantic drama set in the early 20th century. With the film running for just over 70 minutes, the plot centers around a painter given a peculiar commission of capturing two young women on canvas. This commission gradually expands into a subtle and provocative reflection on coming of age, sexual awakening, and the conflict between repression and freedom.
The film attempts to capture the balance between erotic artistry and poetic imagination, which is particularly apparent in the film’s visuals. Although Picture of Beauty has a pastoral backdrop which awakens a sense of nostalgic and forbidden loveliness, the movie is soft spoken. It compensates for the lack of a dialogue with a loud atmosphere which conveys emotional conflict through slow cinematography and extended visuals.
Plot Summary
A young artist commissioned by an unidentified patron to paint two portraits of two young women sets off on a journey to a secluded village. His arrival in a small town, however, he is surprised to learn that the girls are sheltered and secluded. They both live a sheltered life as the secluded village town is cut off from the modern world.As the artist paints, the initial shyness of the models gradually begins to reveal underlying passions and desires. Their daily rituals of posing, shifting gazes, whispering secrets, and sharing faint confidences take on a renewed significance. The artist creates a zone where deeply buried desires hover on the brink of realization.
As the sun brightens and the fog begins to clear, the models shift from a childlike innocence to a more intermediate age. Their relationships with one another and with the artist are infused with new and heightened curiosity and a complex tension. The film ends without a clear conclusion which compels the audience to ponder the nature of freedom that exists within boundaries and the unanswered questions of liberation within restraint.
Characters & Performances
The painter does not dominate the narrative, but he is involved in the emotional arc of the story because of his gaze and artistic perspective. The painter is described as mysterious and quiet, holding the dual roles of observer and instigator.
The roles of the two young women are portrayed by Danielle Rose and Taylor Sands. They shift from soft spoken and modest to self-aware and present. In this more self-aware state, the two ladies begin to express and communicate, relying more on physical movement and expressions rather than words.
The sparse supporting cast, which includes village elders and townspeople, serve as an atmosphere that complements the scenery. The rural elements, combined with the traditionalist values create the isolation that the models begin to rebel against.
The performances feature a blend of youthful uncertainty as well as raw passion. The contemplative to uncomfortable range of performances suggests more of a visual sensation rather than a story focused on dramatic narratives.
Themes & Symbolism
Sexual Awakening & Coming of Age
The modeling sessions are a way for the girls to garner awareness. Their posing for the painter aids during the process to become a metaphor for the adolescent awakening that is physical, emotional, and mental.
Power & Liberation through Art
The painter possesses control through his symbolic authority, the brush. The painter creates identity that can be shaped, preserved, and liberated through social constraints, marking it as art of transformation.
Freedom versus Repression
The tension between a conservative social structure and the imposed impulses is depicted in the film set in a rigid provincial village. Public decency stands in stark contrast to private eroticism, which showcases defiance.
Exploitation & The Male Gaze
While Picture of Beauty aspires to poetic eroticism, it simultaneously grounds itself in gaze dynamics. The painter employs both symbolic and literal gaze and poses the question of whether such performances are empowering self-expression or voyeuristic objectification.
Visual Style and Cinematic Approach
Maxim Ford’s direction is vividly expressive. The film unfolds in slow motion and long takes while softly natural light accentuates tactile elements such as draped fabrics and flowing hair. Flickers of sunlight and colors evoke mood more than realism, fading to pastel greens, cloudy grays, and flesh tones.
There is little dialogue. Rather, the camera focuses on still faces, motionless bodies, and the subtle shadings of feelings that quietly shift over them. This creates a spellbinding atmosphere that is dreamlike in quality, either enchanting or distancing the viewer.
Blurring the camera’s focus, accompanying the gentle pacing, and the use of quiet nature sounds as the film’s soundtrack pushes the film further into the realm of art cinema as opposed to romance.
Reception and Critique
The Picture of Beauty has evoked differing reactions from its audience. Whilst some call it “visually intriguing” and “artful”, praising its atmosphere and world building, others take a starkly different view, calling it exploitative and empty, poor acting, a lack of a real storyline, and too much erotic imagery.
Some reviewers commented that the film sometimes soft-core erotic films wearing the mask of art films. One of the critics remarked that the narrative of the film feels secondary to the sexual display. The visuals are meant to “emotional depth” instead of evoke emotion. The artistic promise of examining repression poetically is, for certain people, merely a thin excuse for soft-core pornography.
Response to the film further illustrates its polarity, with supporters heralding its mood and theme of freedom, while critics lambaste the amateurish writing and acting. Many people believe this film would only appeal to those interested in experimental erotic films because of its niche nature.
Cultural & Artistic Context
Although the film is British, it is still influenced by European erotic art cinema. For example, it evokes directors such as Tinto Brass or Jess Franco, but in a soft-focus filter. The undertones of queer and the exploring of female erotic awakening is acknowledging works such as Portrait of a Lady on Fire, but done with less polish.
This film, as a period piece, indulges in nostalgia of countryside life and the serenity that comes with corseted dresses. The eroticism serves as the fuel to the characters’ journeys. Traditions serve both as the backdrop and the barriers as the characters undergo self-discovery.
Conclusion
Picture of Beauty – the film is filled with paradoxes. This is mostly of the attention it pays to the film’s visuals and its thematic content. It seeks to explore the sexual awakening, the evolution of the artistic gaze, and the move from naiveté to self-awareness in a conservative context. At the same it, it often succumbs to clichés like the gratuitous use of slow motion, unsubtle symbolism, and static, underdeveloped characters.
Picture of Beauty and its erogenous visuals can evoke reflections and thoughts. It is reserved for the contemplation seekers and focused visuals appreciators. On the other hand, viewers looking for coherent plots, character evolution, and moving emotional portrayals, will find its surface, full of shallow ideas, exploitative.
Picture of Beauty is at the interface of art and porn. It is a film that seeks to accentuate bluntly the juxtaposition of beauty and repression. It also attempts to explore areas of artistic promise, which instead ends up with the promise of its art, getting lost under the burden of sensual exuberance.
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