Blue is the Warmest Color.

Blue is the Warmest Color. (2013)

I watched 'Blue is the Warmest Color', a while ago. I wrote a quick review about it on a blog that I've now privatised. It was only a short review because I had paired it up with a few other films and I wanted to go into a bit more depth about it. I'll probably do the same with those other films too, but anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. It was two in the morning when I watched this film because I was having trouble sleeping and I'd wanted to watch it for a while. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this film is three hours long. So when it got to four in the morning with no signs of wrapping up, I paused the film and watched the remaining hour the next day. So yeah, moral of the story, if you're going to watch this film, make sure you've got the time!

"Adele's life is changed when she meets Emma, a young woman with blue hair, who will allow her to discover desire, to assert herself as a woman and as an adult. In front of others, Adele grows, seeks herself, loses herself, finds herself."

Oh boy is this a slow burner. Like, painstakingly slow, my god. It's not particularly plot driven, it's much more about the characters and their lives and how their lives change and evolve over time. Mainly riding the bus and eating spaghetti.

that's 78% of the film right there.

Blue is the Warmest Color has been described as the film that took the Cannes Film Festival by storm. The film is the first to have the Palme d’Or awarded to both the director, Abdellatif Kechiche and lead actresses (Adele Exarchopoulos, whose character is of the same name - the girl eating the spaghetti - and Lea Seydoux who portrays the blue-haired Emma) making both actresses the only women (apart from director Jane Campion) to have ever won the prestigious award; and it's not difficult to see why. I read on various articles and heard in various interviews with the actresses only read the script once, the rest of the dialogue was improvised based on what they knew about the scene. Also, real life footage of Adele was used (like riding the bus and eating dinner and stuff, hence why the main characters name was changed from Clementine to Adele because people would call her by her real name in these clips).  Because of these very specific filming techniques, it did feel like I was watching real people rather than actresses acting. As a result of this, I was extremely invested in these characters lives. The film spans a huge period of time, so we as the audience get the chance to watch these characters grow - as individuals who are still finding themselves and as a couple as they try and find their feet.

There was a lot about this film that I was able to connect to on a personal level, and I would hope that everyone would be able to, regardless that this is a story about two girls falling in love it's ultimately a coming of age story, something that everyone can relate to. The dramatics of high-school - the struggle to maintain friendships with people who don't understand you; the want to grow out with the confines of those people and the high-school institution; the initial excitement when you meet someone new and different and interesting. Something that film did excellently was making me feel things for the characters, which is something I often feel a lot of films fail to do for me. I will watch a film and something will happen to the characters and I simply won't care. But in Blue is the Warmest Color, I cared. I wanted to stand up for her against her friends, I wanted to comfort her when everything goes wrong. Don't get me wrong, these characters aren't perfect, not by a long shot. These characters are extremely flawed, which creates another layer of human realism. Adele makes mistakes, as does Emma. As does every character in this film. The two leading characters involve themselves in arguments in which neither is right, but both are too stubborn to admit.

hahaha, our story is going to break your heart!

It also helps that it's actresses that i've never seen before, so that definitely helped me get involved in the story. If it were people like Keira Knightly and Amanda Seyfried, I would be highly aware that they were acting - not to insult their acting abilities, just that in this type of film, I would be very aware.

I feel like anyone who has already seen this film is waiting for me to mention the somewhat infamous sex scene, lasting a whopping seven minutes and is just as graphic as all the reviewers have lead you to believe. The scene lasting as long as it does is somewhat unnecessary, coming off more as 'straight guy's fantasy of two chicks having sex', and less the passion-filled climax (for a lack of better words) as it might have been intended.

desire to dye hair blue ... rising ... riiiiising

Another thing I wanted to mention was the fact that this film is an adaptation of a graphic novel by the same title. After I watched the film, I immediately went online an bought a copy of the graphic novel for myself (and it really didn't disappoint). The fidelity of the film is arguable, the bulk of the main structure is still in place, but to be honest, it's a pretty independent piece of art. The actresses breathe a different light to the characters and the overall tone of the film, I would say, differs greatly than that of the novel, written and drawn by Julie Maroh. There are quite a few events that take place in the novel that aren't featured in the film and I do wonder why they made that decision, because the novel is absolutely beautiful (I would highly, highly recommend reading it). But similarly, the film was equally, but differently, excellent. It did dishearten me greatly to read that the actresses had such a horrible time during filming - an article which i'll link to here (clickity click.) But despite their awful filming experience, it all paid off because what happened was that at the end of it all, they created a wonderful film. Not to talk it up too much, of course this film does have it's flaws that I will nitpick at. There are points that the dialogue seems unnatural, there's a scene towards the end of the film that feels totally out of place and it is perhaps a bit too long than is totally necessary. But saying that, for the most part, the dialogue feels real, the characters feel like real people and there are some scenes in particular that I thought were outstanding (especially the one in the garden with the cinema screen in the background - not spoilery, just so that those who have seen it know which one i'm talking about).

Would recommend for those with a lot of patience, enjoy character development, are a sucker for sexy french accents and want their hearts ripped out!

Until next week, non-existent readers!