Review of Blue is The Warmest Color by Kechiche

I saw this film at the local arthouse film theater near where I live. I chose to watch the film rather than watch the New York Giants vs. Dallas Cowboys football game. I think my father was somewhat disappointed that I chose to see a French film about young lesbian love rather than watch a football game. I thought this predicament to be a humorous choice that I had to make. I'm sure some of my cousins who are Cowboys fans would hold me in contempt for my choice to watch the movies instead of the game. Yet, I think I made the better choice. The movie was very good and I could see why it won the top prize at the Cannes film festival. I'm so glad that we have an arthouse film theater in my home town to bring works like Blue is the Warmest Color to places outside of major cities. On to the film.

The most effective scenes in the film were the love scenes. They were not hardcore porn. More like softcore. Yet, you really feel the emotion that the lovers loved each other with which makes the, spoiler alert, breakup between the two women so much harder to bare. Aesthetically, the sex scenes were not glamorous. They were suited to an Arthouse crowd. The scenes were full of passion. It was young lesbian love in full display. Like in Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty, the first time with a woman for the young woman was full of ecstasy and discovery.

The film raises awareness about what it's like to be a young lesbian in France. The main character Adele experiences hardship because she fantasizes being with a woman. She gets into fights with students at school, she doesn't tell her parents she is a lesbian, and she lives in shame about the fact that she likes girls. Through her we see how difficult life is for someone who lives in the closet, ashamed about who they are. Yet the film is not a total dramatization about lesbians. There are some scenes that celebrate being a lesbian. Of course, as I've already mentioned, the sex scenes, but there are also art exhibition gatherings, dinners, etc.

This film is more concerned with narrative and theme rather than style and technique. There is nothing special about any of the aesthetics of the film. The cinematography is typical. The camera is pretty much just there, recording events. The story is a linear one. It follows a chronological path. So why did the film win the top prize at Cannes? My speculation is that the content, the story more than made up for what was lacking in camera or editing techniques. It was one of the first films in which lesbians were portrayed in a serious light. The passion the characters had for each other and the heartbreak that comes because Adele is unable to accept being a lesbian are intense drama some of the best I've seen so far this year during the serious season for cinema.