Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013)

To put it in as simple terms as possible, Blue Is The Warmest Colour is a story about Adèle, a high school student who finds herself confused and troubled with her sexual identity. After passing a blue-haired girl on the street who catches her eye and an even more confusing, spontaneous and upsetting encounter with a classmate she finds it all to curious and enticing when a close, male friend takes her to a gay bar, she follows some girls to another bar nearby where she sees the blue- haired girl again. A short conversation sparks a relationship that carries us through the rest of the film.

Well, where to start?

To start with, this film is exhaustingly long. 3 hours is too much for so much useless, meandering exposition. It serves nothing other than to keep us away from a plot that is so thin you could go make yourself a cup of tea and come back 20 minutes later and nothing would've happened to push the story along. I'm sure there is an excellent 90 minute film in there somewhere if the editors had been more ruthless in their cutting and the director wasn't so preposterously self indulgent.

The sex scenes are unavoidable, exploitative and sickening within the context of the films creation. The major sex scene that everyone talks about took a gruelling 10 days to shoot and was only the actors 2nd shot on-set together, they literally didn't know each other and were suddenly put together to perform these scenes for an imposing, frustrated director.

Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos have both stated that the 3 hour film doesn't really show how much they shot, that the director would do hundreds of takes of even the most simple scenes, extend scenes and shoot for extremely long periods of time and would become enraged if they laughed even once out of one hundred takes.

Knowing how the actors felt about it (thankfully they have been vocal in interviews about how horrible and unpleasant the experience was) how uncomfortable they were with unchoreographed sex scenes; sex scenes are almost always choreographed, shots and various angles kept to minimal length so that actors are more comfortable and that the experience is as desexualised as possible. They have spoken about how they felt powerless to say anything about it because "The director has all the power. When you're an actor on a film in France and you sign the contract, you have to give yourself, and in a way you're trapped."…"In America, we'd all be in jail." – Léa Seydoux

This is perversion and abuse of power in the truest sense. The fact that Kechiche wrote the adaptation, produced and directed the film, apparently even financed some of it himself tells me all I need to know about his intentions. Even Manohla Dargis of The New York Times has written that it "feels far more about Mr. Kechiche's desires than anything else".

I feel awful for Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos for having to endure this "horrible" 6 month shoot and for having to work with this director, of whom they have said they would never work with again. They deserved better than this because their performances are incredible given the situation that they had to work in.

And finally, I also feel bad for the characters Adèle and Emma, their story deserved so much better than this.

Fmovies: I certainly blinked when I found out this movie was 3 hours long, especially considering that it won the Palm d'Or where many winners have a slow and painful plot. This movie on the other hand does a great job keeping every scene riveting through great dialog and riveting emotions. I would compare many of the scenes in this movie to Tarantino scenes where scenes take on a life of their own. Cleverness and awkwardness were dispersed in a way to make it seem real and ultimately human. I felt wonderfully disappointed when certain scenes ended. The actresses held nothing back in their body language and added much to the moment-to-moment importance of their character development.

This year's Palm d'Or winner is a coming of age story about a teenage girl, Adele (the literal title in French is The Life of Adele), who discovers her homosexuality and begins a relationship with Emma, a college student. For a while, I was thinking this was a good but fairly unremarkable entry into the queer cinema canon, but, over the film's three hours, well, you see why the long running time was necessary. It is just a very detailed picture of a life. It feels more real than most films - it feels like more time has past and that we've just felt Adele's growth. Frankly, I didn't feel the length of it at all - I wanted it to be longer. It really helps that the actresses are so perfect. Adele Exarchopoulos is simply fantastic - this is the performance of the year, really. Her face is so expressive. The film takes place over several years, and you really do see her grow from a child to an adult. Lea Seydoux plays Emma. Her role is less demanding, but she's still great in it. Now, the biggest story of this film has probably been the graphic sex scenes. My opinion on them: I actually do think they're a bit too graphic, gratuitous and almost pornographic. I try to justify them artistically in my mind, and I'm afraid I can't. There's a plot point near the end where you kind of have to know that the girls' sex life was fantastic, but I'm not sure we had to see it in anywhere near as much detail as we did. They're without a doubt awkward to sit through, but they don't ruin the film either.

Blue Is the Warmest Color fmovies. Cinematic orgasm. Cinematic. Orgasm. Put the words together and separately, it does not matter actually. I was watching the film with a sense of bitten apricot in my mouth, so from time to time I kept checking if indeed something was dripping from my lips . In any case, you can feel all kinds of dripping in this garden of delight and from many different angles. A deep diving into puberty, into the raw desires of youth, above the thunderous victory of human need. Adele is the personification of youth, just in time when it begins to grown. That exact moment when the juices of love are instantly aggressive and the human body seems like a fruit with the heart as a kernel. When you are in the midst of immortality, gaining the illusion of eternity, just before the fruit is eaten, shortly before the kernel sits at your neck with the bitter taste of rejection, while you greedily swallow life, which seems so inexhaustible. I left my local cinema with the feeling of a hot lump in my throat and stomach. As a teenager in love and disappointed at the same time. And from that moment I keep seeing little hearts and stars everywhere. I keep seeing Adele everywhere.

I was fortunate enough to see this movie at a screening last night in Los Angeles. It was amazing, everything about it amazing! Kechiche is something special. He works on something until he gets it right, and the only time he gets it right is when he feels comfortable with what he has shot. At the Q&A afterward with Kechiche, Seydoux and Exarchopoulos, I learned that they shot some of the takes 100 times!

His methods are unconventional. Because of this you are able to experience cinema in a whole new light. The acting was so real, so moving; these actresses gave everything they had, I'm just blown away with what I viewed. My hat is off to Exarchopoulos and Seydoux as actresses. No matter how painful and difficult the process must of been to make this movie in the end I think that they would have to agree it was worth it. To know that you gave everything is something special, and something that I hope I can look back to on my career and say I felt as well. Kechiche, call me, I want to be in your next film!!

I waited some days to review this title after seeing this film. This movie triggered me thinking about love and life and I waited to give it my neutral review. I am watching movies since the latest 30 years and I have to say ; This movie is special !! After 30 years of seeing all kind of movies I have narrowed my scope of movies to see. They have to be special, show me something different, give me ideas to think about or to evaluate in my own life. So, movies like World war Z is not directly my style. This movie although is one of the best love stories I have seen. No unnecessary emotional or cuteness parts, each part of the story is real and genius. It is the soft moments of a love story, the hard moments bringing to the screen. The movie is made in away you are in the skin of Adele and Emma ( can't remember the actress names ). They take you with them in their love story, their feelings. That is also the reason that the 3 hours of the movie is not too long at all. I was surprised it took 3 hours when the film ended. The movie handles the passion between them, a passion that many of us forget over the years in a relation. That passion is also expressed in about 3 sex scenes, 3 scenes which are quiet honest and direct. Some people will find these scenes too long ( one of them could take 10 minutes ), but I find it necessary to establish your follow up of the passion they have between each other, so that when things goes worse you also are one with the situation.

This movie, natural, honest about love, life and sexuality could be attended by children of 12 and more, if they are explained things of life ( they also can see all kind of war movies Â… ). Many will say "Oh, lesbian movie, what the hell you are". This is a movie for all of us, independent of your orientation being gay, hetero, bisexual, Â… It is a Love story.

Each feeling, being angry / disappointment / sad / etc Â…, can be seen on the faces of Adele and Emma and by this I have to say that these actresses are just superb, in fact I don't know another word to say extraordinary acting. It has certainly been very difficult for them to make this film. The director : Bravo to him.

There are some scenes which are just fantastic : The first meeting between them, the encounter between them in the lesbian bar in which Adele is in a strange world as adolescent. The tree scene, where they actually get in love both of them. The level of a good love story with all it's feelings and situations has been raised to a higher one. Who can ever do this better.

And the last remark. The film treats the love story, it's personal problems, the passion, but does not handle the problems which can have their family or friends, not in detail.

And now, go and watch it !