When painter Pierre Bonnard (Vincent Macaigne, Festival Guest, IFI FFF 2019) met Marthe de Méligny (Cécile de France) in a modest Paris studio in 1893, little did he realise that this selfproclaimed aristocrat would come to exert enormous influence over his life and work. From their first highly-charged encounter, Marthe became more than just a muse for the struggling artist, who aims to ‘revolutionise modern painting’, and would ultimately appear in more than a third of his work. Together they achieve their artistic fulfilment thanks to shared attitudes towards sexual liberation, radical for the standards of their time, their freewheeling romance brilliantly captured by renowned director Martin Provost (Seraphine, 2008).

Notes by David O’Mahony

Screening as part of the IFI French Film Festival, November 15 – 26.