Rated 7+ IMDb · 70%+ RT Little-known finds Curated by humans
Rated 7+ IMDb · 70%+ RT Little-known finds Curated by humans
2008 Movie
Dir. Martin Provost · Belgium, France · French, German
A beautifully shot biopic about an ordinary cleaning lady turned artist
Séraphine is a biopic, but it’s not your ordinary rags-to-riches story where a cleaning lady’s paintings lead her to getting plucked from obscurity and living happily ever after. It’s a bit more tragic than that. If anything, the life she’s lived before she was famous is calmer, peaceful, and more fulfilling. Carving up time from her housekeeping job to create unique pigments and use them for her own artworks, Séraphine doesn’t paint for fame, fortune, or reputation. Instead, she paints because she can. Something about the way she goes through her mundane life opens up insights most people don’t get. Séraphine attempts to capture that genius in some of the most beautiful candlelit images ever put to screen.
The tragic story of French naïve painter Séraphine Louis aka Séraphine de Senlis (1864-1942), a humble servant who becomes a gifted self-taught painter. Discovered by prominent critic and collector William Uhde, she came to prominence between the wars grouped with other naïve painters like Henri Rouseau only to descend into madness and obscurity with the onset of the Great Depression and World War II.
"Séraphine is one of the most evocative films about an artist I've ever seen -- and in its treatment of madness one of the least condescending."
— David Edelstein
"Relies heavily on Moreau's gripping, continually surprising performance to effectively convey the oracular urgency and fractured, Dionysian mentality of Seraphine de Senlis and her work."
— Leo Goldsmith
The tragic story of French naïve painter Séraphine Louis aka Séraphine de Senlis (1864-1942), a humble servant who becomes a gifted self-taught painter. Discovered by prominent critic and collector William Uhde, she came to prominence between the wars grouped with other naïve painters like Henri Rouseau only to descend into madness and obscurity with the onset of the Great Depression and World War II.
LAFCA
1 win
European Film Awards
1 nom
César Awards
7 wins · 2 noms
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Isabella Endrinal is a curator at A Good Movie to Watch. She's now free from the corporate night shift. Previous articles have been published in outlets such as NANG Magazine. She's currently catching up on some classic films… if she isn't coping with the fact that the Haikyu anime will end soon.
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