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MARTIN PROVOST skirts two troublesome genres in this earthy, scuffed, beautifully performed study of the French primitive painter Séraphine de Senlis. Too many films that deal with mental illness treat the condition as a kind of divine superpower: confusion balanced by the gift of naive wisdom. Conversely, too many films about artists treat genius as a troublesome disease.

Almost entirely free of sentimentality, Séraphinepresents its protagonist as infuriating, unknowable and stubbornly human. She emerges as an annoying sort of hero – that is to say, not the sort you usually encounter in biopics.