Blue is the Warmest Colour

Every so often jus­tice is done and a film receives the atten­tion and acco­lades it deserves. This Palme d’Or win­ning chron­i­cle of the plea­sure, pas­sion and pain of true love is exact­ly that. The beau­ty of direc­tor Abdel­latif Kechiche’s slow-burn­ing and nat­u­ral­is­tic depic­tion of a young lady’s evo­lu­tion through mat­ters of the heart derives from the fact that its struc­ture and themes are so uni­ver­sal that it’s open sea­son on find­ing a way to plug your­self into the drama.

Three hours fly by, in a large part because of the com­mit­ted per­for­mance of young star, Adèle Exar­chopou­los. In the graph­ic nov­el that inspired the film, her character’s name was Clé­men­tine but here it is Adele, an amend­ment made by Kechiche so he could use footage shot when tech­ni­cal­ly work was all over for the day.

The essence of a gen­uine 19-year-old exists in the char­ac­ter of Adèle, which makes sense after wit­ness­ing the dras­tic range of emo­tions she dis­plays. No nose has ever run as exces­sive­ly as Adèle’s in scenes when she is gripped by the fear that she will lose her lover. No paint­ed A‑list face has chan­neled such sin­cer­i­ty as the messy, unself­con­scious, cap­ti­vat­ing Adèle. Her char­ac­ter lives for love, and this sin­gle-mind­ed focus can be seen in her con­stant atten­tive­ness to the exter­nal world and the way it con­nects to her blue-haired girl, Emma (Léa Seydoux).

Blue… spans many years, begin­ning when Adèle is a school­girl engag­ing in sex­u­al exper­i­ments with a school­boy. She lives with her moth­er and father and long din­ner scenes of them hoover­ing up spaghet­ti in near-silence set the tone for a sto­ry in which appetites speak loud­er than words. The cam­era is Exar­chopou­los’ most loy­al com­pan­ion, lock­ing its gaze on to her face when she is still, fol­low­ing her from behind when she takes off, hair quiv­er­ing in its own force­field as she pounds the streets en route to school or a date. Whether Adèle’s face is blank or elec­tri­fied by feel­ing, whether she is eat­ing, read­ing, dress­ing or fuck­ing, the cam­era cre­ates a sense of great antic­i­pa­tion. This char­ac­ter is ripe and ready for shap­ing through experience.

Expe­ri­ence has a name and that name is Emma, an old­er, more refined and defined les­bian artist. Kechiche’s script was appar­ent­ly on the slim side, leav­ing the actress­es – who became great friends – to work up their rela­tion­ship nat­u­ral­ly. In its organ­ic pro­gres­sion through flir­ta­tion, dis­cus­sion and phys­i­cal inti­ma­cy, the film shows up the mil­lion romances that rush through these stages, sub­sti­tut­ing sign­post­ing for sin­cer­i­ty. Here, there is no sense of urgency, just space and time and two women with only eyes for each oth­er. No pri­or­i­ty oth­er than how two lives will devel­op around a bond.

Kechiche’s unerr­ing con­fi­dence in the pow­er of this sim­ple sto­ry man­i­fests in long takes of domes­tic and out­door dra­mas. The pas­sage of time is con­veyed in sub­tle changes in lifestyle – now Adèle wears ear­rings, now Emma’s hair is no longer blue. Careers devel­op, oth­er friend­ships ebb and flow, fam­i­lies exert defin­i­tive influ­ence. In the micro­cosm of a rela­tion­ship the rhythm of life finds a pulse. Food and its slop­py con­sump­tion remains impor­tant, as does – and if you haven’t read the sala­cious reams on this, bra­vo – sex.

In the con­text of so much nat­u­ral­ism, long, graph­ic depic­tions of car­nal­i­ty do not seem gra­tu­itous or porno­graph­ic, they seem like pas­sion­ate expres­sions of love. In an indus­try where sex usu­al­ly plays like a ​‘best of’ adver­to­r­i­al, see­ing a pas­sion­ate expres­sion of love is cause for cel­e­bra­tion. Par­ents, bring your (old­er) kids!

This being a well-round­ed tale of love, the nar­ra­tive also goes into mis­takes, anger, jeal­ousy and fights. After hav­ing spent so long fly­ing solo with Adèle at the begin­ning her pain here is con­ta­gious. Exar­chopou­los’ emo­tion­al­ly expres­sive face makes her a sym­pa­thet­ic con­duit to the depths of anguish and a relat­able ref­er­ence for per­son­al rav­ages. Adèle has described Kechiche as tak­ing her from the shad­ow and putting her into light, in Blue is the Warmest Colour she has tak­en the most volatile, extra­or­di­nary and mis­rep­re­sent­ed emo­tion and placed that in the light.