(France, 179
min.)
Dir.
Abdellatif Kechiche, Writ. Abdellatif Kechiche, Ghalia Lacroix
Starring:
Adèle Exarchopoulos, Léa Seydoux
 |
| Adèle Exarchopoulos in Blue Is the Warmest Color. |
Blue is the warmest colour, but this sensuous love epic is
one hot film. Blue is the Warmest Color
is certainly a top commodity after its sensational run at major film festivals,
which began with a unanimous coup of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film
Festival. The Cannes Prize elicited just as much buzz amongst art-house aficionados
as did the controversial sex scenes that made headlines earlier in the
festival. The crux of Blue’s Palme
win is that the Cannes jury, headed by Steven Spielberg, confidently gave
the prize to the film’s two stars, Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux, in
addition to director Abdellatif Kechiche. Cannes, the penultimate auteur film festival, thus trumped the boldness of the racy French
flick that was the festival’s own thunder. Spielberg et al gave the right
verdict, though, for the casting is the heart of Blue of the Warmest Color. The performances by Exarchopoulos and
Seydoux are stirring revelations.
The glance between Adèle and Emma—a beautifully choreographed swoon of
a shot—comes as no surprise given the fine bit of foreshadowing that alludes to
it before. Adèle, an avid reader and smart pupil in literature,
studies Marivaux’s La vie de Marianne
in class. The teacher refers to the inevitability of tragedy, and the lesson’s
allusions to love and loss seem to strike the spunky Adèle with special force.
One cannot overlook the prominence of Marivaux in Adèle’s
sexual awakening. Director Abdellatif Kechiche seems to have an affinity for
the author, as his 2003 film Games of
Love and Chance (L’esquive) enjoys
a ripe meta-theatricality by using Marivaux’s drama as a setting for students
in a banlieue making a play of their
social situation. (Games truly is a
must-see for any fans of Blue is the
Warmest Color and/or quality films in general.) Kechiche plays with
language in Games of Love and Chance
by toppling the witty marivaudage of
the author and replacing it with cuss-laden vernacular à la “The Wire” that lets the kids enact the play in their own language. Kechiche similarly
unfolds Blue is the Warmest Color
with ultra-literary consciousness. Like the unfinished book Adèle reads, Blue feels like a film awaiting new
chapters. The film’s original title, after all, is La vie d’ Adèle: chapitres 1
& 2.
Blue is the Warmest
Color develops with a enchanting oblivion to place and time as the film
eschews virtually any token with which one can situate the film. It’s a
timeless and transcendental tale. The universality of Blue is the Warmest Color is especially remarkable since the only
thing explicit in the dramatization of the relationship of Adèle and Emma is
the physicality of their romance. The actresses boldly jump into a series of
extensive hardcore love scenes that reveal the arc of their relationship. The first
coupling is a moment of discovery: Adèle fumbles awkwardly before finding
herself within her deep connection to Emma.
The sex of Blue is the
Warmest Color is as bold as sex in the movies can be. The intensity of the
the sex scenes of Blue offers lengthy
interludes of extreme passion. (When Adèle and Emma look back on their
relationship, it’s the hunger of their physical attraction that they remember
most.) The blunt physicality of the scenes might be too much for some
viewers—Sunday’s screening featured a healthy peppering of giggles—but Kechiche
pushes the actresses beyond risqué territory as they do anything and everything
to convey the girls enrapt in the all-consuming power of love. It might be the
frankest depiction of lesbian love to hit the cinemas with such force, but it’s
a love like any other.
Oddly enough, Blue is
the Warmest Color feels at its most gratuitous and graphic in the moments
that Kechiche zooms in on Adèle’s mouth with an icky and fetishistic eye. The
camera loves Adèle’s mouth. It’s weirdly disgusting how much of the film trains
its attention on the girl’s disorderly lips. Adèle loves to eat and she always
chews with her mouth open: the scenes of her slurping away on plateful upon
plateful of spaghetti are almost as gross as the close-up of the actress
mashing away on a gyro during Adèle’s first date with Thomas. Kechiche also
throws in a random moment of voyeurism as the audience watches Adèle
sleep—she’s a mouth breather, naturally—and the camera locks on her gaping
lips. Viewers might ask what the director aims to say with these unappetizing
images. Perhaps they’re a visual equivalent to the appetite she satisfies with
Emma.
The food, however, gives Blue
is the Warmest Color one of its most satisfying motifs. Kechiche centres
much of the film’s dynamics around food as Adèle and Emma come together. A
sense of joie de vivre simmers in the
communal servings of Adèle’s pasta Bolognese, prepared especially for Emma in celebration
of her work. Similarly, a dinner date that introduces Adèle to Emma’s family,
which goes much better than the humiliating date that introduces Emma to Adèle’s
family, sees Emma teach Adèle the pleasure in shucking oysters. The tasty
bivalves, Emma teases, have the same texture as another acquired delicacy. The
spirited oyster-shucking scene highlights Adèle’s innocence and naïveté: the
young girl has much to learn from the experienced Emma. Tom Jones has found an LGBT contemporary in this sensuous romance.
Kechiche saturates Blue
is the Warmest Color with rich symbolism to accentuate Adèle’s maturation. Adapting
the graphic novel by Julie Maroh, it’s only fitting that the film has such a
strong visual sense. Virtually every composition in the film is drenched in the
colour of Emma’s sky blue hair. Adèle’s infatuation with Emma floods her
surroundings. This first love defines Adèle, and a rift between the two girls
evokes the tragic drowning alluded to in the un-demarcated first chapter. The passion
that fuels Adèle is that of the depths of The
Deep Blue Sea.
The visual power of the film is needfully refreshing, for Blue is the Warmest Color is a mass of contradictions. As Adèle struggles with her fidelity to Emma—after all, she's just a young woman—Blue clouds Adèle's perception of her own identity as she wonders whethter she gay or not. Blue then presents a male counterpart as a potential love interest and teases that the man offers a potential solution to Adèle's dilemma. (The film thankfully leaves Adèle's arc of self-discovery open for a new turn in Chapter 3.) She also hides her sexuality from her peers once she becomes a teacher (Kechiche really has a thing for the teacher-student relationship) and the film turns its back on the love it seemed to celebrate in the first half. Similarly, the film omits any reference to Adèle's life when it moves into its second chapter. (The sections of the movie are not signalled, but they're easily felt.) Blue never lets the audience know whether Adèle became an outcast for coming out and proclaiming her love for Emma.
The visual power of the film is needfully refreshing, for Blue is the Warmest Color is a mass of contradictions. As Adèle struggles with her fidelity to Emma—after all, she's just a young woman—Blue clouds Adèle's perception of her own identity as she wonders whethter she gay or not. Blue then presents a male counterpart as a potential love interest and teases that the man offers a potential solution to Adèle's dilemma. (The film thankfully leaves Adèle's arc of self-discovery open for a new turn in Chapter 3.) She also hides her sexuality from her peers once she becomes a teacher (Kechiche really has a thing for the teacher-student relationship) and the film turns its back on the love it seemed to celebrate in the first half. Similarly, the film omits any reference to Adèle's life when it moves into its second chapter. (The sections of the movie are not signalled, but they're easily felt.) Blue never lets the audience know whether Adèle became an outcast for coming out and proclaiming her love for Emma.
The passion of Adèle, however, fuels every frame of Blue is the Warmest Color as
Exarchopoulos dives full throttle into this complex character. This performance
is astonishing. Exarchopoulos smartly makes Adèle a product of youth. Too many
films romanticize a tragic heroine wiser beyond her years, but Exarchopoulos’s perceptible
innocence allows Blue is the Warmest
Color to take the audience to extraordinary places as Adèle discovers the
pleasures—and, more deeply, the pains—of first love. Her physical delivery of Adèle’s
vulnerability is a jaw-dropping geyser of tears, runny snot, and raw heartfelt emotion.
Seydoux (whom viewers might remember as Owen Wilson’s contemporary love
interest in Midnight in Paris) plays
the teacher to Adèle’s childlike student. Fiery and exotic, Seydoux straddles
the difficult role of playing an open book with an air of mystery.
Blue is the Warmest
Color would be an altogether different experience if the chemistry between
the actresses was even the slightest bit off target. The chatter surrounding
the physical barriers that the two actresses break are sure to bring attention
to Blue is the Warmest Color, but the
emotional boundaries that they move together deserve all the praise. Blue is the Warmest Color is a
ravishing, albeit exhausting, odyssey into the throws of young love
Rating: ★★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Blue is the Warmest Color screened at The ByTowne October
22 as the closing night selection of the Inside Out Film Festival.
It has a theatrical
run in Ottawa at The ByTowne November 15-24.
All photos © 2013 WILD BUNCH, QUAT’SOUS FILMS, FRANCE 2 CINEMA, SCOPE PICTURES, VERTIGO FILMS
