New Title: La Vie d’Adèle – Chapters 1 and 2
Director: Abdellatif Kechiche
With: Adèle Exarchopoulos, Léa Seydoux
Type: Coming of Age, Romance Drama
Running Time: 179 minutes
Spoken Language: French
🎥 Summary
Blue Is the Warmest Colour details the intimate and sometimes maddening aspects of Adèle Exarchopoulos’s character’s life as a high school student Adèle. In her life as a high school student, Adèle is perpetually battling between her comfortingly mundane life and the sense of entrapment she feels in regard to her identity and the expectations that her friends and family have from her.
With the passage of time, she meets Emma (portrayed by Léa Seydoux), an older art student who possesses an alluring blue hairstyle, changing everything. Their encounter transforms into a passionate yet all-consuming love affair, which works as the catalyst for Adèle’s sexual and personal awakening.
The film captures both extremes of romance, first love and heartbreak, miraculously Adèle and Emma’s relationship, the strength of love everlasting and interweaves themes of passion, hate, heartbreak, self-discovery and the need to conform to societal standard. Its rawness makes the emotions feel relevant.
🏆 Critical Reception & Accolades
Blue Is the Warmest Colour quickly became one of the most acclaimed films in 2013 because of its unfiltered emotional depth during its premiere. Other than its reception the feats of Exarchopoulos and Seydoux were widely celebrated as well.
The film’s primary crowning glory came during the Cannes Film Festival in 2013 when it captured the iconic Palme d’Or. In a groundbreaking move, the award was given out not just to the director Abdellatif Kechiche, but also to the two leading actresses of the film as well. This was unprecedented as it gave recognition to the actresses’ contribution towards the film’s success.
Some additional accolades include:
Best Foreign Language Film – BAFTA Award nomination
Adèle Exarchopoulos won the César Award for Best Actress at only 19, making her the youngest winner of this category.
FIPRESCI Prize – Cannes Film Festival.
🎨 Aesthetic Style & Cinematography
Aside from this, the film is also notable for its elaborate color use where the color blue is used to represent desire, growth, and melancholy. In terms of style, Kechichi uses a “cinema verite” style. In other words, the combination of close up shots and the use of handheld cameras creates an immersive experience while allowing the audience to truly connect with Adèle’s emotions.
The film’s approach to the pacing of the story is naturalistic in the sense that scenes are not burdened with the classically recognizable cuts and edits—this permits the unfolding of scenes naturally. As a result, the various emotional pitches – tender, passionate, or deeply personal – feel real and unrestricted.
🌍 Cultural & Social Significance
Apart from its achievements in the realm of cinematography, Blue Is the Warmest Colour is a groundbreaking film in LGBTQ+ cinema. Its explicit depiction of same sex relationship was bold, and set new standards for portrayal in international mainstream cinema.
Nonetheless, this movie was under scrutiny from the public, especially due to the overt sex scenes. Some critics, along with the graphic novel’s original author Julie Maroh, argue that the sex scenes reveal a male gaze rather than a genuine representation of lesbians interacting. Such discussions raised significant issues concerning the portrayal of queer relationships in the media, particularly who possesses the authority to write such narratives.
Even with such controversies, numerous viewers and critics appreciate the film for its tremendous emotional honesty and the film’s stunning lead performances.
🎥 Behind the Scenes Matters
According to reports, the process of creating Blue Is the Warmest Colour was very grueling for the two lead actresses. Kechiche’s shooting style is highly demanding as it involves long hours and multiple takes, often pushing the actors to their limits in terms of emotions.
Both Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux later claimed that the ordeal was difficult, especially with the extremely graphic scenes that took ten days to shoot and required intricate movement. The actors, in tandem, expressed some victory in the artistic achievement of the film, but were candid about the emotional and physical strain of its creation.
💔 Deep Themes
Self-discovery – Adèle’s confusion gradually gives way to understanding her sexuality, and this metamorphosis is the film’s emotional core.
Love & Desire – Emotionally and physically intense first love captivates the audience, accompanied by the analysis of the film’s central thesis.
Class Differences – The social gulf that exists between Adèle, a working-class girl, and Emma, an upper-middle-class more intellectual woman, informs their gradual separation as time passes.
Loss & Heartbreak – The culmination of the movie unfolds a sensitive subject of losing not only a lover, but a large part of oneself, resulting to the heartbreaking pain that comes with the fracture.
💡 If You’ll Enjoy This, You Will Like The Following:
Should the intricate romantic narrative in Blue Is The Warmest Colour struck a chord with you, then check out these films that are equally captivating:
🔍 Concluding Remark
This film Blue Is The Warmest Colour has emotionally gripping qualities that still captivates audience’s attention, and the love and distress is beautifully acted. Its production troubles and issues with the portrayal of intimacy might be as controversial as the film gets, but even with those shortcomings, the film still stands out as an icon in LGBTQ+ cinema.