Directed by:
Abdellatif KechicheCinematography:
Sofian El FaniCast:
Adèle Exarchopoulos, Léa Seydoux, Salim Kechiouche, Jeremie Laheurte, Catherine Salée, Aurélien Recoing, Benjamin Siksou, Alma Jodorowsky, Sandor Funtek (more)Plots(1)
15-year-old Adèle dreams of finding the love of her life. When she meets Thomas - a dark, handsome, friendly stranger who falls for her instantly - her dream seems to have come true. But an unsettling erotic reverie upsets the romance before it begins. Adèle imagines that the mysterious, blue-haired girl she encountered in the street slips into her bed and possesses her with an overwhelming voluptuous pleasure. She can no longer deny her true desires - Adèle likes girls. Then the gorgeous, sensual blue-haired girl reappears. and approaches her. A passionate and chaotic love story has begun... (Wild Bunch Distribution)
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Reviews (10)
Though Blue Is the Warmest Colour owes some of its qualities to the original comic book (available in French and, since September 2013, in English) about two young women’s great love spanning several years, the main reasons that it is such an emotionally absorbing experience consist in the adaptation’s flawless formalistic approach. An essential role is played by the unique symbiosis of the immediate performances of the actresses and how they are captured by the camera, as most of the runtime is made up of close-ups and medium shots. This approach, literally eliciting a feeling of closeness, highlights even the smallest details in the faces of the central couple, based on which the narrative builds the intense emotional tension found in all of the scenes. Blue Is the Warmest Colour provides an intense, three-hour immersion into a single relationship without a single unnecessary second. Each moment of this dramaturgically perfectly composed film presents a complex and very intimate view into the emotional life of the protagonist Adele – from the initial difficult clarification of her orientation to the passionate love that later transforms into doubtfulness arousing uncertainty and devastatingly painful loss. Despite the caustic comments directed toward it, Blue Is the Warmest Colour deserves all of the acclaim and attention that it has received from both critics and viewers not because of its explicit sex scenes, but simply because it is a uniquely intense viewing experience that literally takes the audience on a journey through the turbulence of a long-term relationship. Even as it enthrals viewers and allows them to experience every intoxicating and devastating moment in the women’s relationship, it never does so in a superficial way. P.S.: Blue Is the Warmest Colour gave me the most intense viewing experience that I have had in many years.
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Blue Is the Warmest Colour takes a complex approach to depicting several developmental phases in the life of a girl who is becoming a woman. Kechiche could have shown only cause, effect and consequence, but he is more interested in the process and the course of the transformation itself, as well as its duration. Length is one of the many tools that the director uses to break down the barrier between the movie 90 protagonist, Adele, and the viewer. ___ A good eighty percent of the dialogue (and thus of the whole film) is handled through close-ups of faces. The traditionally rendered dialogue scenes consistently reassure us that reality continues outside the frame of the picture. Conversely, we are given the impression of being enclosed in a small space that is more or less defined only by the actors’ bodies. Ignoring the surrounding environment intensifies our connection with the characters, whose intimate zone limits what we see and hear. The distancing of the camera from the character at the end of a dialogue scene then serves as a liberating means of stepping out of the inner universe of interpersonal relationships and into the outside world. Whether the characters’ communication, be it verbal or non-verbal (including sex), is conveyed using the shot/countershot technique or through panning, also plays a role. However random it may seem, the form is always under the director’s control, fully subordinated to the process of bringing the characters together and distancing them both physically and mentally. ___ In multiple senses, a line is crossed during the erotic scenes (love and sex, reality and pretence), each instance of which has its own justification (for example, the sharp contrast between a moment of extreme intimacy and the following scene of a family birthday party, which requires far more pretence). The explicitness of the erotic scenes raises legitimate suspicion of voyeurism on the part of a tyrannical director (whom both actresses have described as a genius, though they no longer want to work with him), while their unusual length is the most extreme expression of the film’s unwillingness to pretend anything in communicating with the viewer. It is no coincidence that Blue Is the Warmest Colour also addresses the limits of honesty of representation (whether in film or in other arts) in dialogue that never descends into café blather that would only serve to demonstrate the filmmaker’s intellectual prowess. References to films such as Pabst’s Pandora’s Box reasonably complement the main motifs of the narrative and concurrently help us to understand the characters outside of the relationship context. ___ I don’t know of many films that could go this deeply and with such physical urgency under the skin of the main character. In my case, the idea of “putting yourself in someone else’s shoes” was manifested with extraordinary intensity. After three hours, I was glad to start living my own life again, but my connection with Adele definitely did not end with the closing credits. 85%
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A film from the "life as it is" collection. This collection is starting to be very good because it counts the first episode of Nymph()maniac: Volume 1 among its number, just like Blue Is the Warmest Color. These protagonists need to be loved. And you need to walk through a piece of your own life with them. At the other end of the spectrum is the appeal of life arising from the youth of the protagonists of the Clip. It's not important where these protagonists come from, but what they do to hold up a mirror to us. And even if nothing else, the favorite problem of passionate relationships will always be about what to do with an initiated evening when our other half doesn't pay enough attention to us. Are the hook-ups and break-ups worth the momentary feelings of satisfied vanity? At the same time, I must add that I was very pleasantly surprised by the original comic, which can be read in English as "Blue Is the Warmest Color." The original is both more tender and more somber, Adèle has a different name and the film adaptation has deliberately abandoned some details and motifs from her life. But this mirroring has very naturally left the comic to live its own peculiar life, and if the film Blue Is the Warmest Color appeals to you even a little, read the comics because they are worth it.
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If this movie were about a teenage hetero couple, it’d be mundane and uninteresting. If it were about two gay boys, it’d be unwatchable for most viewers. But it’s about two lesbians and the Cannes jury, led by the king of Hollywood, awarded it the Golden Palm. Like Linklater’s three-hour- long Boyhood, the three-hour-long Blue is the Warmest Color slowly and not too dramatically talks about everyday life issues. But unlike Boyhood, it focuses on one particular stage in the main character’s life and goes so deep that the last part of her story moves the viewer to tears. Because we all know how that hurts, no matter what our sexual orientation is. The sex scenes are very open, but not self-serving. On the contrary, they are very important for the physical and emotional absorption of the story, which is its alpha and omega. The central duo of young actresses is incredible in every word, feeling and look.
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It’s very rare to see a festival flick so relatable, with artistic choices that fully support the power of the message and the emotional effect. The three-hour series of details on the faces of actors, whose ordinary activities deliberately don’t deviate from the process of the heroine’s development, may have some passages that are almost unnecessarily long, but the creator would be able to justify them without hesitation. We are not only watching Adele, we are Adele and we are experiencing with her tense moments as participatorily as the film medium will allow. The sex scenes are perhaps too long, but also inevitable, given the consistency of the process of following the internal and sexual development of a fragile heroine, and they are also pleasant for the male viewer (both actresses not only act great but look great, too). Sexuality can be a heavy burden and here we see it unadorned and very realistic. 85%
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