Niki de Saint Phalle biopic is a compelling portrait of the artist

In 1952, Niki de Saint Phalle moved to France from the United States with her husband Harry Mathews and their young daughter. Dark childhood memories, including those involving her incestuous father, began to resurface, prompting her to commit herself to a mental hospital, where she underwent electroshock therapy. Her brief stay there inspired significant changes in her life. She is no longer a model and actress. Now, she will be a full-time artist.

Saint-Phalle, as most people know her, was the tortured, ill-tempered, busty female sculptor known as “Nana.” But with her movies NikkiDirector Céline Sallette complicates this perception, showing that she was already resilient before she became an artist.

“I wanted to tell this story before history, to show how a young mother from an aristocratic background was destined to become one of the most influential artists of her century,” said Salette, the actress known for films such as “Movies” . House of Tolerance and rust and bone Who makes his debut here.

The Salette biopic starring Charlotte Le Bon has been warmly received in France, where it screened at the Cannes Film Festival this summer before being released in theaters last October.

The film spans roughly a decade of de Saint Phalle’s career, showing the period before she began exploring oppression, violence, and joy in period-defining sculptures and paintings. Nikki The story begins in the 1950s, with the artist wearing a perfect white dress and a sparkling crown, striking an exquisite pose for the photographer who commands her. Eventually, the artist cut her hair short and donned more masculine clothing, preparing to photograph bags of paint covered in plaster for her famous 1961 performance. Tire.

Le Bon bears a striking resemblance to the artist, who died in 2002, and it turns out they had more in common than just their looks—both started out in the fashion world.

de Saint Phalle’s photographs cover the following issues Life, Fashionand Eller Le Bon began painting before becoming a model, before turning to painting and sculpture, a trade she gave up at the age of 23. Just watching Le Bon prepare a canvas or furiously mix colors with her bare hands, you can tell she has some experience with art herself. This makes the character of Le Bon particularly believable.

Often, Le Bon began working on paintings of de Saint-Phalle, which did not always appear on the screen. This is because Salette was not allowed to reproduce de Saint-Phalle’s work – an unusual rule for an artist biopic. Therefore, the canvas is not always placed front and center.

Others have more prominent works of art. In one of the opening scenes, Saint-Phalle walks around the Louvre and lingers in front of Theodore Jericho’s “The Raft of the Medusa.” She had a very different reaction to Bernini’s snake-haired Medusa sculpture, which immediately put her off. This scene is obviously symbolic. Medusa was known in ancient Greece for petrifying anyone who dared look into her eyes, and was considered the embodiment of madness. In this way, the sculpture’s presence heralded a nervous breakdown that led to de Saint Phalle being committed to a mental hospital with her consent.

If you’re not an art lover, you probably won’t feel cheated Nicky——There aren’t many artists on display here, and the film may be a bit difficult for those unfamiliar with de Saint-Phalle’s biography. Still, there’s some effective visual storytelling. In the first scene, for example, a ray of light draws a line across de Saint Phalle’s face, separating her dark past from the bright future ahead. “Am I free?” she asks, setting the tone for the rest of the film.

Elsewhere, there are split screens designed to evoke recurring divisions in de Saint-Phalle’s biography. As Sallet puts it, these split screens are intended to “highlight the mythical dimension of Saint Phalle’s life.” For example, there is a sequence intended to mark the end of her relationship with artist Jean Tinguely, in which he reads her breakup letter while she cries in the car. The separation here is literal.

French music producer Para One provided the film with an expressive score that reflects the ups and downs of de Saint-Phalle. The chaotic sound of footsteps, the clang of knives, and the buzz of electric shocks create a sense of anxiety throughout the film, but when Para One’s music kicks in, the film conveys that de Saint Phalle has achieved a breakthrough. At the end, the brass instruments dominate, as if to suggest that she has finally found wealth and fame.

This is a film about transformation – de Saint Phalle ends up becoming a very different person than he was at the beginning of the film. Considering de Saint Phalle’s avant-garde spirit and stylistic chaos, isn’t this all a bit neat? Maybe, but the film is certainly neat enough that anyone can enjoy it