The Lady in the Portrait
Le portrait interdit
This sumptuous costume epic evokes the unique rapport between a French missionary (played by Melvil Poupaud) and the Manchurian empress (Chinese super-star Fan Bingbing) whose portrait he is ordered to paint. The film recounts the feverish moment when the Empress meets the Jesuit painter… a moment when the electric relationship between the painter and his model is caught up in the constraints of the court and its rigid rules of etiquette.
Director: Charles de Meaux
Cast: Melvil Poupaud, Fan Bingbing, King Shih-chieh, Huang Jue, Wu Yue, Sally Chan
2017 I 104 mins | France, China
French and Mandarin with English subtitles
Screening as part of the Screen Horizons programme of films at Summerhall.
