It's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present.

Do you believe that someone out of the past can enter and take possession of a living being?

We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us.

Welcome back to the next picture show, a movie the week podcast devoted to a classic film in the way it shaped our thoughts on a recent release.

I'm Scott Tobias here again with Tasha Robinson.

And via Skype, we have Keith Phipps and Genevieve Kosky.

In our last episode, we revisited the controversy of Jane Campion's 1993 art house hit, The Piano.

Boo.

That's not good?

That's good.

Today we're talking about another Torrid Affair with Portrait of a Lady on Fire, the new

film by French director, Celine Siamma.

Seama's previous films, Waterlilies, Tomboy, and Girlhood, have all been coming-of-age dramas about

adolescence with a fluid gender and sexual identity.

With Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Siama is dealing with grown-ups, but she retains an interest

in same-sex relationships and characters with the courage to defy social norms.

Naomi Merlant stars as Marianne, a late 18th century painter who's brought to an isolated island off the coast of France to paint a wedding portrait.

The tricky part of her assignment is that Heloise, the bride to be, played by Adele Hainel, has refused to pose for a portrait.

So Marianne sets about painting Heloise in secret.

But in order to get the details right, she spends a lot of time

observing her and talking to her, and the two develop a natural friendship. When Heloise's mother

leaves her Italy, home to the nobleman her daughter is arranged to marry, the two women are left

...