Morisot: Courage, Storm and Love (2018)

Directed by: Klaas Bense | 70 minutes | documentary

“In the society in which I would like to live, women play a much more influential role than is currently the case,” says director Klaas Bense in the press kit of his documentary ‘Morisot – Courage, Storm and Love’, with the nineteenth-century film as its main subject. century painter Berthe Morisot. “The life of Berthe Morisot can be an inspiration for women to find and increase their own strength and to use it.”

With the ‘male gaze’ it quickly becomes ‘Hineininterpretierung’, to use these beautiful English and German words. Anyway, why not give a man who explores the role of women through feminine art the benefit of the doubt? ‘Morisot – Courage, Storm and Love’ is a loving documentary made with visible enthusiasm. An ode to Paris, to women, and to Berthe Morisot herself. This female impressionist of the second line – sister-in-law of Édouard Manet and immortalized as such a number of times – stands for feminist development at Bense, which is not surprising when you consider that Morisot has expressed himself in writing about equal proportions between men and women.

Bense examines Morisot’s role in the lives of contemporary Parisians. A recurring female rapper who sees Berthe as an example, a taxi driver who expresses himself about the role of women, a biographer, an art historian, a nude model of Lucian Freud. This ‘diversity’ derives from Morisot’s basic history, which, despite its presumed fame, must in any case be communicated well to an uninhibited audience. The historical context is fragmentarily released and mixed with the feminist message in the here and now, so that the subject itself becomes too little alive. It is true that with beautiful images that force you into the Thalys, but let one art historical authority speak at the beginning and then go in depth.