From a Dusty Archive to a Silver-Screen Obsession
When Curiosa was pitched to the festival audience, it was a scandal wrapped in artistry. This was not just another historical romance. It was one that promised the investigation of desire, rebellion, and creativity through the lens of unlawful passion. It was inspired by the late nineteenth century Parisian liaison of writer Marie de Régnier and poet Pierre Louÿs. The film suggested the eroticism in images, and the photographs that were both erotic declarations and sinful.
Curiosa captivated the attention of arthouse cinemas well before its theatrical release. Its subject, however, was not love, but the education of desire. The lingering question became: could a contemporary filmmaker transform the hidden sensualities of a historical era into something emotionally sincere and, perhaps, less voyeuristic?
Curiosa’s artistic credit goes to one of the directors, Lou Jeunet, and co-writers. Jeunet finds joy in the voices of women that history overlooks. This was the case of Marie de Régniers’s letters and photographs. In an interview, Jeunet remarked, “She wasn’t a victim or a muse but a creator who took risks.” This sense of a woman claiming agency amidst the women and, presenting a sense of societal emotional Curiosa was the driving force. The emotional centre of.
Choosing Noémie Merlant to play Marie was a brilliant choice. Known for her powerful performances, Merlant portrays Marie not as a tragic heroine but as a woman who, in subtle ways, is defying the social codes of her time. In the paradox of being both subject and object, Merlant embodies the tragic heroine in a defiance and silence that speaks volumes. The subtle defiance is in the silence, the gaze, and its the stillness that is defiance. The gaze that meets the lens of the camera speaks volumes, and it is the gaze that defines. In. The silence both defies and speaks.
The character played by Niels Schneider, Pierre Louÿs, serves as a splendid contrast: he is passionate, cerebral, and infuriatingly narcissistic. They create a complete image of two artists insatiably driven by the desire for everlasting fame. Benjamin Lavernhe plays Henri de Régnier, Marie’s husband, and offers the character a respectable, stable presence which does not suffuse her life with passion. In this role, Camélia Jordana, as Zohra, adds a shadowy tenderness to the narrative – a character positioned at the crossroads of love and cultural otherness.
The visual style of Curiosa, developed by cinematographer Simon Roca, is itself a character. Light and shadow play as emotions as they are on skin – candle flames, photographic grain, and silences of footfalls in velvet halls are all manifestations of the same ethereal space. The editor, Anita Roth, uses her work to enfold the audience into the timelessness of Marie’s inner life, which feels as though we are viewing a work of memory as opposed to a linear narrative.
When Paris 1895 Speaks to Modern India
Although it may seem unusual to find similarities between France’s Belle Époque and contemporary India, Curiosa taps into emotions that have no geographic boundaries. At its core, Curiosa is about a woman struggling to write herself into a world that is determined to silence her. That struggle between asserting one’s identity and observing the expectations of polite society is all too familiar to Indian women and to Indian artists, too.
Marie, forced to marry and find emotional stability, is the one emotionally restricted, aching for the freedom to create. Indian women in a patriarchal households are expected to perform emotionally restricted, burdensome tasks, and having their aspirations relegated to the sphere of the personal is a burden all too familiar. As a nation, India is caught in a silent struggle, one that is mirrored in the film, between the freedom to breathe and the constraints that are placed on women.
Even early thematic erotic photography — risque for 19th-century Paris — has an unexpected Indian parallel. India too continues to contend with issues of modesty, censorship, and the female gaze. When Curiosa identifies photography as a form of protest, the imagination drifts to Indian creators, acts of defiance, and the portrayal of so-called “unsafe” Indian sensibilities. The documentary captures, with poignance, the perennial coupling of art and shame, and the revolutionary quality of female-claimed desire.
Marie’s personal odyssey, from being a muse to her own artist, parallels the transformation of female representation in Indian cinema — from being spoken for to speaking for oneself. The struggle is universal: to be seen not as ornament but as author.
The Buzz, the Reactions, and What Many Missed
The buzz surrounding the premiere of Curiosa was undeniable. While the trailers provided glimpses of the soft-focus intimacy and the lavish costumes, the core allure of the film was the emotional depth it promised. Many critics lauded the film for its aesthetic beauty and for being “a painting brought to life.” There were also those who felt it was overly reserved, overly polished. Many of those who came to the film expecting a scandal or an overtly romantic plot were surprised to find a more intellectual exploration of the act of looking.
Social media users enthusiastically focused on the chemistry, or lack of chemistry, between Merlant and Schneider. It was a chemistry not defined by flames, but by an almost palpable creative jealousy and a vulnerability that, when coupled with the social tragedy of the time, Maries and Marie’s epoch placed her, became the defining tragedy of an era.
Silence, on the other hand, tells the story that many did not recognize. The erotic scenes do not capture the tension, it is the stillness that Marie, the window, and Pierre’s hand photographs capture that pulse with it. The tension is the conflict between the act of creation and the act of possession.
Festival screenings received quiet applause. Some audience members compared this restraint to Indian directors like Aparna Sen or Shyam Benegal. They are storytellers who focus on stillness, rather than spectacle, to express rebellion. Some younger audience members thought the film was slow, but even they had to admit the world Jeunet created was hypnotic, with Parisian salons glowing under candlelight, and longing hanging in the air.
Behind the Velvet Curtain
While Curiosa captures the 1890s with relative ease, the film still had to overcome obstacles. Dealing with the 1890s Paris was tedious, with vintage clothing, antique cameras, handwritten manuscripts, etc. Jeunet did not want to over polish the film. She wanted the audience to feel the grit under the silk, the wooden floorboard’s creak, the fatigue of real bodies captured in the art.
Debates among purists were also raised by film’s score, composed by Arnaud Rebotini. Use of subtle electronic textures in the score was bold and controversial, yet intentional, for the purpose of pulling the film’s energy to the present. Jeunet wanted to show that Marie’s defiance transcends the past and resonates with the present. It suggests activism.
To some degree, autobiographical elements crept into later drafts, constructing Pierre more along the lines of the libertine villain archetype.
Still during rehearsals, however, Schneider and Jeunet moderated them, preserving the antagonism without which more villainous interpretations could be produced. They were interested in the complexity of the character rather than simple condemnation, revealing how even a poet who objectifies the other can be a prisoner of his desire.
Another nuanced and lesser-known aspect of the film is how Jeunet argued to keep the provocative photographs of the characters emotionally engaging while avoiding the erotic clichés of the genre. Unlike other period romances, Curiosa departs from the norm by focusing on the protagonists’ and Marie’s acts of authorship in the nude. Marie is constructing a narrative by taking photographs rather than simply being a passive object in a gaze.
Spakowski notes the deep exhaustion of such emotionally and mentally layered intimacy: “Curiosa felt like ‘entering another woman’s century and fighting her battles with her own tools’ when she had just completed Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” Schneider specified, “It’s like writing love in reverse: capturing what you’re losing, not what you’re gaining.”
Curiosa as a piece of art is more than a historical narrative. It is a rich meditation on the intersection of art, love, and rebellion. It’s pervasive power lies and is felt in the interconnections it draws, be it the poets’ Paris or today’s filmmakers’ Mumbai, the images of Hubad and the images all over the social media today or the photographs of Hubad.
What Lou Jeunet and her cast captured wasn’t just a period romance — it was the eternal ache of creation: to be seen, to be remembered, and to make something beautiful out of longing.
Would you like me to write a follow-up piece connecting Curiosa to contemporary Indian cinema that deals with themes of artistic or romantic rebellion, such as Tamasha or A Death in the Gunj, to highlight those cross-cultural resonances more deeply?
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