If you don’t know anything about “Blue is the Warmest Color”, here are some key words that might trigger an association: “Cannes Palme d’Or”, “controversy”, “12 minute lesbian sex scene”. The sex scene is a fraction of the three-hour movie, though it has dominated the conversation and without fail has become the focal point of ostensibly every review. Quel domage since the meat of the movie isn’t in the scenes of sexual ecstasy or even the love story (arguably), but rather how to fill the empty moments in between. The French, “La Vie d’Adèle- Chapitres 1 et 2”, more aptly reflects the graphic novel influences- it is basically taken scene for scene from the novel “Bleu” by Julie Maroh. If you can identify with the metaphor demarcating relationships as the chapters in our lives, chapters with definite beginnings and ends, then you will probably walk away with some sort of cathartic release.
Take what you will from the sex scenes. Perhaps the close ups capturing the intimacy between two female lovers will be uncomfortable (it is intimate), or offensive (male gaze, neither women are lesbian, is it just a farcical blockbuster porno?), but to reduce it to an “erotic lesbian love story” is disparaging since it is a story about human emotion that transcends sexual lines, although Adèle does encounter torment from her peers for being gay.
The movie itself is a work of art on behalf of the performances by newcomer Adèle Exarchopolous and the très célèbre Léa Seydoux. The Cannes Film Festival jury were so blown away that they decided to split the Palme d’Or three ways, between Exarchopolous, Seydouc, and the director, Abdellataif Kechiche. As the a story between a working class high school student Adèle (Exarchopolous) and boho college art student Emma (Seydoux) unfolds, Kechiche documents the dramatic evolution of love, relationships, and sexuality during a critical time of challenging self identity.
Under Kechiche’s unwavering gaze, Adèle matures. From high school student, to elementary school teacher, everything about Adèle’s life is up close and personal. The tight shots centered around the characters faces (or other body parts) capture every expression so naturally that it’s easy to lose yourself in Adèle’s world. Without any fancy setting (this is Lilles in northern France), the drama is generated by dynamic human relationships- love, lust, conspicuous consumption, indulgence, the desire for fulfillment and the crippling fear of getting left behind. Surprisingly, much of the movie is set in classroom and the kitchen, not the bedroom, documenting the solitary life of a lonely girl.
When Emma comes into the picture, with her gap-toothed grin and cropped blue do, her confidence lures Adèle into her rebellious world where Adèle first begins on a soul-searching path. But, as anybody who has experienced first love can attest, the trouble with getting swept away by another is dealing with the impending uneasiness of the afterthought of, “What happens when this all ends?”
Because who can really know how one will react? The only choice we have is to experience, and so let us watch and find out.