Viewed at home via Netflix Instant Watch, by myself.
It's a French movie with subtitles.
I read the synopsis and viewer reviews on Netflix and seeing that it was about an artist, I had to see it. It was wonderful. The acting, the direction, the atmosphere, all top notch.
Love, love the way foreign movies show real women. I'm not an American basher, being an American myself, but in this area I have to say that American movies are so shallow. They seem to be only able to have beautiful women in them that are thin and look a certain way. Movies with Meryl Streep are the exception. Not that she isn't attractive, but she isn't the typical type. This is because is she the most incredible actress in the world in my opinion.
So, I appreciate that fact that women of age with a few bulges and wrinkles are part the foreign movie agenda. I think this also reflects the acceptance of those mature attributes by foreign society as a whole. Much healthier. Yes, I know men love to see a beautiful, perfectly formed, flawless face and figure. Good for them. I like to think that not all of the men of the world think that anyone who is older has nothing to offer. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Anyway, Serephine is played by Yolande Moreau. It's a sign of a great actress when she will play a physical character that is not beautiful in the typical sense and whose figure is a real one. There isn't a great deal of personal information about this actress during my cursory Internet search, but what I did find indicates that she is a multi-awarded actress of great repute. This movie certainly reinforces that reputation. She won the equivalent of the Oscar in France for her performance and what a performance it is.
The story is based on the life of Seraphine de Senlis, an artist discovered under unusual circumstances. The link above will take you to Wikipedia where there is a very interesting article about her life. I looked at her paintings and thought they were wonderful. She was a true, born-that-way artist. Genuine. Here is one of her paintings. It's fantastic.
She was very poor and so made some her paints out of found materials. Flowers, plants and in the case of red, she used animal blood from the butcher shop. She bought other basic materials with her meager earnings as a menial servant and she painted on boards or anything that would work as a painting surface. Once she was "discovered", she was able to purchase canvas on which to paint.
Seraphine de Senlis was a person who ended up in an asylum. Was she always slightly insane as so many great artists or did her art and events surrounding it affect her mind? The movie has it's own interpretation.
Seraphine
3 cow movie
Here is the movie trailer
