Artemisia . Newcity Chicago . 05-18-98

Artemisia

DIRECTED BY: Agnès Merlet

REVIEWED: 05-18-98

A ravishingly lit and decorated romantic biography of 17-year-old Artemisia Gentileschi (Valentina Cervi), a hot-headed young woman with a gift for art in seventeenth-century Florence, where young girls are not supposed to want to do such things, particularly if it involves asking men to model nude for her. (She's kicked out of convent school right off the bat for drawing nude self-portraits by candlelight.) Her father, the painter Orazio Gentileschi (a sage Michel Serrault), recognizes her gift and encourages the fresco painter Agostino Tassi to take her on as a pupil. The bond of teacher and student, as it must in such lush bodice-rippers, produces more than art... Sensual turbulence ensues, with much discussion of the meaning of art and much contemplation of the naked form, both male and female. Cinematographer Benôit Delhomme's work is a delicate study in lighting, with many luminous scenes suggestive of the styles of the paintings on display. From the talented director of the wonderful but little-seen "Son of the Shark."

--Ray Pride

Capsule Reviews
Artemisia
Artemisia

Film Vault Suggested Links
My Family
Les Miserables
Welcome to Sarajevo

Rate this Film
If you don't want to vote on a film yet, and would like to know how others voted, leave the rating selection as "Vote Here" and then click the Cast Vote button.