By day, Seraphine de Senlis quietly cleaned homes in a rural French village. By night, she made vivid paintings of fruit and flowers.

They brought her fame and modest remuneration in middle age. Today, nearly seven decades after her death in an asylum, the paintings still can be seen in galleries, museums and private collections.

Her true story is the subject of "Seraphine," a beautifully realized film by Martin Provost. It deservedly walked away with an armload of Cesars, the pre-eminent French national film award. In addition to directing, Provost co-wrote the film with Marc Abdelnour.

Their Seraphine (brilliantly played by Yolande Moreau) was reclusive, quiet and too stout to be physically attractive by conventional standards, yet possessed of a certain radiance when painting, singing prayerfully (as she did when completing a canvas) and when especially pleased with herself.

As for her painting, it was not done by choice. She believed it ordained by her guardian angel.

It might have remained unknown had it not been for Wilhelm Uhde (Ulrich Tukur), a German-born critic and gallery owner who discovered it while sojourning in the village of Senlis to escape the stresses of pre-World War I Paris. Uhde discovered Rousseau and was among the first to promote the groundbreaking work of Picasso and Braque.

He spotted a painting by Seraphine in the home of his village landlady, instantly recognized a gifted "modern primitive," and demanded to see the artist and more of her work. Thus began a relationship that started in 1914, was interrupted by the war for a decade, then resumed and continued until Seraphine's death in 1942.

Uhde encouraged her to paint and to believe in her talent. He sold her work and built her reputation and her income to the point at which she had enough money to quit cleaning others' houses.

He patiently endured the giddy financial excesses to which she succumbed, and he stood by her as her mental state progressed from eccentric to serious mental illness, breakdown and finally to permanent confinement. Tukur is rock-solid as Seraphine's loyal champion.

Moreau is consistent, delicately nuanced and entirely credible as the self-taught Seraphine moves through the parallel lives of simple rustic and spiritual and artistic channeler of the Virgin Mary. It is, truly, a prize-worthy performance.

The actors are supported immeasurably by Laurent Brunet's elegant cinematography and the co-writers' rigidly straightforward screenplay. It places the riddles of faith, creativity and human connections squarely on the screen but leaves it to us to puzzle them out. The Grandin is to be commended for bringing this out-of-the-mainstream film to valley audiences.