“Blue is the Warmest Color”
Directed by Abdellatif Kechiche
Starring Adèle Exarchopoulos, Léa Seydoux, Salim Kechiouche, Mona Walravens, Jérémie Laheurte, Catherine Salée, Aurélien Recoing
Drama, Romance
179 Mins
NC-17

Before seeing Blue is the Warmest Color, ask yourself: am I interested in seeing two women in the buff pleasuring each other in unprecedented NC-17 fashion? Even if the answer is yes, there’s still a good chance you’ll find yourself squeamish, crunched in a theater surrounded by strangers as two au naturel ladies hump on screen like jackrabbits OD-ing on Viagra. Although Lars Von Trier‘s slated 5-hour sexual odyssey Nymphomania (sigh) will probably outdo anything set to screen here, Blue is the Warmest Color certainly charters new ground in terms of sexual depictions onscreen at this particular moment in time. But regardless of how risqué the scenes of full-blown love making are here, they add nothing to the context of the story and in one fell swoop redefine masturbatory filmmaking.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for some girl-on-girl action but I’d much rather experience that in the comfort of my own home rather than sitting next to a 65-year old gawking geyser who’s probably never heard of the internet. All the spanking, rug-munching, and disappearing fingers makes the audience uncomfortable and, it seems to me, that that is not the intention of filmmaker Abdellatif Kechiche. I’m not one to balk at gratuitousness in movies so long as it services the film. Here though, they’re just servicing each other. 

The film centers on Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos) and how her sexual self-exploration parallels her growth as a person so it’s no wonder that we are to witness to some of the more carnal of her erotic acts. But by the time we get to these controversial lesbian love-making scenes, the hope is to unearth some kind of new found passion – a natural rigor unlocked from the union with another woman. Kechiche wants his audience to feel the explosive force of their love as we curl into our voyeur’s chair and watch the lovemaking unfold, but this “making love” looks a lot more like banging, and there’s little to “feel” other than a rumbling in your pant’s region. The lengthy scenes to follow are simply pornographic, making this just about the worst movie in the world that you could see with your mother.

Criticism of controversy aside, Blue is the Warmest Color itself stands out for its down to earth look at human relationship and depth of character. However easy it may be for some feeble-brained individuals to simplify Adèle down to the most basic elements of her lesbianism, she is remarkable because of her sexual complexity. More than being straight or gay or bi, Adèle is sexuality as experimentation. A pinch of this, a taste of that, all’s good in her witch’s brew of fleshy exploration. Rather than stick to the narrow road society has laid for expectations of lesbian culture, Kechiche sees his characters as people first and foremost, women second, a gay lastly. No matter what label we adhere to, he says, we are all sexual beings overflowing with desire and helplessly jealous. After all, we’re just human.

From her electric blue hair to her eccentric allure, Léa Seydoux‘s Emma’s unorthodox simplicity is a puzzle for Adèle. While Adèle sorts out her way through her world, Emma is steadfast in hers, a statue of self-secure lesbianism. Adèle can’t quite seem to get a read on the doting Emma and her personal brand of traditionalism. They are ying and yang, point and counterpoint – a memento of a familiar relationship we’ve all had. Every time Adèle shies away from watchful eye of the masses, Emma embraces it. As the film winds on, they circle each other, souls intertwined but never blended into one. However close they come, they cannot see the world through each other’s perspective.

Adèle‘s internal confusion is counterbalanced with a wholesome dose of curiosity. She’s eternally insecure, never really willing to commit to one side of herself or another before she’s sampled every treat in the candy shop. Society’s resolute demand for conformity is probably what prompts her to torture herself with thoughts of self-identification. Is she gay? Is she bi? Is she straight? Kechiche’s film says: it doesn’t matter either way. At any rate, it’s the process of trying to fit everything into a box that causes this toxic brand of internal confusion.

As Adèle navigates her way down the long path of figuring herself out, we gain incredible insight into the mind of a fence-sitter – a woman gravitating towards that with the strongest pull in the moment. Years pass and Emma’s electric hair fades to cool blue and eventually into a mousey brown mop as Adèle spirals in her own sink of sexual trial and error. We witness the ups and downs, the roots and fading foundations, and see a relationship raw and rounded.

But that intimacy comes with a price as the three-hour time tag is more than enough to drive people away. And for good reason. Adèle‘s introspective saga is complicated but unnecessarily lengthy, another example of excess in a film brimming with it. With 15-minutes or so of pure porn (which has already become more of a talking point than its victory at this year’s Cannes Film Festival) there is more than enough that could have easily been cut to produce a sharper, cleaner film. Sadly enough, it seems that the allure of the NC-17 might be more provocative than the result.

Seydoux and Exarchopoulos are so unwaveringly committed to the roles that there is no question as to how far they go to with each other, raising questions about where the line ought to be drawn between method acting and smut. But beyond their bare-bodied romps, they each offer intimate portrayals of flawed characters, embodying their characters with the stuff of masters – suffering their inadequacies and reveling in their joy.

Despite how fleshed out Adèle, Emma, and their relationship are, we still only need to know them so well to get the message and three hours gives us a much larger window than we ever need. Strangely enough, the story was adapted from a graphic novel by Julie Maroh and that probably accounts for the episodic, long-drawn nature of the film. But as this cuming-of-age story goes round and round, monotony sets in and we slowly start to not really care where Adèle and Emma get dropped off.

C+