This article examines the negotiation of gazes and looks in Céline Sciamma’s 2019 film Portrait of a Lady on Fire, focusing on the evolving relationship between Marianne, a painter, and Héloïse, her subject. Drawing on (post-)Lacanian psychoanalysis and feminist theory, the analysis foregrounds a critical shift from the phallic gaze—associated with objectification and asymmetrical power—to the intersubjective potential of the look. Through textual analysis, the article demonstrates how Marianne initially adopts a normative, objectifying gaze, positioning Héloïse as the passive object of her vision. However, Héloïse disrupts this dynamic by returning the gaze, reclaiming agency and establishing a visual reciprocity that reconfigures their relationship. This visual shift is framed as a movement away from phallocentric power toward what Audre Lorde describes as “erotic power”: a shared space of mutual recognition and desire. By tracing this transformation, the article argues that Portrait of a Lady on Fire stages a feminist and queer reimagining of visual power relations. It offers a cinematic model for representing female desire and subjectivity beyond patriarchal constraints, emphasizing how the transition from gaze to look enables a more ethical and affective relationality between women. This study contributes to debates in feminist and psychoanalytic film studies by theorizing how the politics of vision can be restructured in queer texts.
