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Seraphine

EMAILPRINTMusic Box Films

Seraphine reviews
84
6.5 User Score:

Movie Info

Genre(s): Drama  |  War

Written by: Martin Provost
Marc Abdelnour

Directed by: Martin Provost

Release Date:
Theatrical: June 5, 2009

Running Time: 125 minutes, Color

Origin: France | Belgium

Language(s): French | German

Summary

RATING: Not Rated

Starring Actress Yolande Moreau, and Ulrich Ukur

Seraphine vividly recounts 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 Rousseau only to descend into madness and obscurity with the onset of the Great Depression and World War II. (Music Box Films)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

What makes Seraphine, directed and co-written by Martin Provost, so exceptional is that it neither condescends to nor romanticizes its subject.

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100

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

The scene is so emotionally ravishing that it breaks you apart. The peacefulness that finally descends on Séraphine in the film's final moments is more than a balm. It's a benediction.

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100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

It "explains" nothing but feels everything. It reminds me of two other films: Bresson's "Mouchette," about a poor girl victimized by a village, and Karen Gehre's "Begging Naked," shown at Ebertfest this year, about a woman whose art is prized even as she lives in Central Park.

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91

Entertainment Weekly Adam Markovitz

Moreau is bewitching -- she simply breathes her role, without a hint of vanity.

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91

Portland Oregonian Stan Hall

Among the best of its kind, thanks in no small part to the utterly believable, vanity-free performance of Yolande Moreau in the title role.

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90

New York Magazine David Edelstein

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.

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90

Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall

Provost and cowriter Marc Abdelnour explore the mutable boundaries between spirituality, naivete, genius, and madness, showing how the two outsiders and polar opposites cultivated a mutual understanding.

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88

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

The rare movie that manages to convey the inner soul of an artist.

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88

Boston Globe Ty Burr

What Moreau does with this role is as inscrutably moving as anything Séraphine Louis painted.

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88

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Williams

With exquisitely simple images and minimal dialogue, Seraphine is both haunting and humane.

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80

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

The line between madness and genius is thin. Not to mention more than amply explored in any number of films about tortured artists. But to look at the almost religious ecstasy on Moreau's face is to feel the artist's passion and be inspired by it.

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80

Variety Eddie Cockrell

An extraordinary performance by vet thesp Yolande Moreau in the title role.

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80

Village Voice Ella Taylor

Séraphine's dependence on her patron--a cultivated but emotionally detached homosexual, who knew a fellow outsider when he saw one but came and went in her life without warning--is almost as unbearably moving as her inevitable unraveling--when money and fame cut the artist off from her creative wellsprings and drove her over the edge.

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80

The New York Times A.O. Scott

The mystery of Séraphine de Senlis -- who died in a mental hospital in 1942 and whose work survives in some of the world’s leading museums -- is left intact at the end of Séraphine. Rather than trying to explain Séraphine, the film accepts her.

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80

The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck

Moving historical drama brings a fascinating chapter of art history to life.

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80

NPR Bob Mondello

Writer-director Martin Provost tells much of Seraphine's true-life story without words, lingering here on the process by which she makes paints, there on the obsessive single-mindedness she brings to her art.

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80

Film Threat Rick Kisonak

Yolande Moreau's most impressive costars are the extraordinary compositions of Seraphine Louis.

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78

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

A genuinely moving portrait of the artist as a young(ish) scullery maid.

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75

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

It's a movie about a scrubwoman who paints - so don't expect lots of sex scenes or car chases. Just expect a great performance by Moreau, who will convince you that she painted every one of those paintings - and lived them all before she painted them.

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75

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Stephen Cole

We don't get a good look at a painting until 35 minutes into the film biography of Séraphine de Senlis, the early 20th-century French painter discovered by German art collector Wilhelm Uhde. The film Séraphine is not about paintings.

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75

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

It is an actors' showcase, without being showy, and Moreau and Tukur reveal radically different personalities with just enough in common to make things interesting.

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67

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

Séraphine is far more powerful when it lingers on Louis at work.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 6.5 (out of 10) based on 8 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Joel B gave it a3:
This was a slow, boring movie - and I love art, the process of creating art, and good movies. It tried to present accurately who Seraphine was but by not going beyond what it knew, it portrayed a woman's outside with no sense of what was inside. It would have been a better movie, if had been moring daring and given us some significant inner thoughts and feelings even if they were technically fictional. By the way, the expert who spoke after the showing I saw, admitted that as far as she knew the only real thing about the whole movie were the paintings. I've been amazed that no critic has given this movie a poor review - what were they thinking?

lauren h gave it a9:
Brilliant use of lighting and cropped shots.

yumin t gave it a10:
The true story of Seraphine, her desperate poverty as a maid, her love of trees and water, creating swirling energies of color in her secret painting, paints mixed from blood and flowers and stolen wax, all beautifully acted, gives the movie a premier place among films about artists.

Alan W. gave it a9:
Beautifully shot and brilliantly acted.

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