Blue is the Warmest Color, a movie that characterizes the color blue with the multitude of shades that derive from its origin, portraying ecstasy between its two lead actresses, and screaming the color red, when talked about behind the scenes. The movie follows Adéle (Adéle Exarchopoulos), a fifteen year old high schooler that falls for the eye-catching blue haired artist, Emma (Léa Seydoux), that has her questioning her sexuality up until the very end.
It in this movie, that the color blue signifies multiple topics with the prominence of its meaning on love. With the introduction of the movie, we see the color blue across specific banal objects such as a bench where Adéle experiences her breakup with her first boyfriend, Thomas, and on the school bus that she takes the school. It is when we see Adéle with a blue scarf and jeans, more up close, immediately before we are introduced to Emma as they cross each other’s pass in the street. After this scene, blue is accentuated in every possible way, from the clothes they both wear, to the city backdrop beside them, to the bed sheets they mess around in; it’s everywhere. Sometimes it appears to read into the intimacy between the two, then it is used to depict sadness in scenes such as when Adéle is crying in bed, and when she retreats to a staircase backdropped by a blue wall after she is insulted by her friends due to their homophobia, and also as a juxtaposition to the color orange, which creates a dramatic color grade. It has been adopted by many post-production users to evoke a unique feeling to the film, and in Blue…, it is depicted well during their first interaction at a lesbian gay bar. The entire bar is filled with incandescent lights, that give warmth to the entirety of the bar, but is then contrasted to Emma, who appears in vivid blue hair and clothing. It is to not only bring attention to Emma, but enhances the metaphor that she’s the most important person in the room in the view of Adéle. The last crucial choice was mirrored in the film projection at the party, that is hosted by Adéle and Emma. Adéle’s face is mirrored with the actors and actresses in the movie playing behind her, showing the real emotion she hides beneath the poker face she presents to the new crowd of people befriended to Emma. It is added vulnerability of her being in an unknown situation, and learning to adapt. The emotional cues are tied directly in to the use of color, where we can explore the vulnerability of both Adéle and Emma, with focus on their individual situations such as Adéle’s introspection and Emma’s rise to artistic success in painting.
The second warmest color revolving around the movie is red. Right after the initial release at Cannes Film Festival, critics, Jonathan Romney, and Marlow Stern, were at the frontlines of the wildfire that stemmed from the argument between the events that happened onset between director, Abdellatif Kechiche and the two lead actresses, Adéle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux. The anger that festered between these people, are as violent as the hours having to work on unused material for the movie. Léa told Stern, “The making of the film was horrible. He demanded ‘blind trust’ and that the sex scenes made her feel like a prostitute.” It was from this statement, followed by a few more, that Manohla Dargis from New York Times, declared the director’s approach to the film to be made in an “anti-feminist tone, with focus on voyeuristic exertions of the male gaze.” It was quick to notice, that these accusations held not only weight, but the proof within the movie itself. The director was criticized for his poor behavior on set, poor organizational and decision making skills, as well as, his ability to transform what he believed to be “painting or sculptural” sexual poses into something uncomfortably orchestrated. Dargis’ remarks are seen as improbable given that the film centers on two lesbian characters, and then it is learned that the film had nobody on set that was actually a lesbian, and furthermore, having the movie directed by a male only further enacts the unfiltered perspective that comes from a heterosexual male point of view. To back his defense, Kechiche questioned, “Do I need to be a woman, and a lesbian, to talk about love between women? I want it to actually be life. Real moments of life, that’s what I’m after.” No, Kechiche, you don’t need to be a woman or a lesbian, but it’s probably more than necessary to have a consultant on set to help with the sincerity, credibility, and direction of how the relationship plays out, before it becomes either dramatized stereotypically, or misses the mark for the clear mistake of not having personal experience with the subject at hand. In great contrast to his ideals for “real moments,” Léa contested that she was demanded to “lick the snot and tears off Adéle’s face as she was crying during the argument scene, in correlation to the demands met by the cast off-scene to beat Adéle really hard, and so she proceeded as asked. With no closure to the argument set forth by both parties, Kechiche concluded (in relation to Léa), “She is a spoiled arrogant child. She’ll have to explain herself before the law.” Léa Seydoux left with the gratefulness that her and Adéle got to share the Palme D’or award, for all that they were put through during the filming of the movie.
While there is much negativity surrounding the behind the scenes action of the film, the positive outlook that rose beyond the critical acclaim (and the award), was the perception of true love that was matched with the audience’s portrayal of what heartbreak could look like if it was focused on two people, and not necessarily their sexuality being used as the backbone to the argument. The emotions portrayed by both Léa Seydoux and Adéle Exarchopoulos, created a powerful dynamic that made it hard to not to be immersed in the scene with them. The emotions they carry through body language is as strong as the dialogue they share. The close-up shots of them slowly kissing or fiddling their hands together, create the theme of touch. Yes, the film takes on an explicit sexual theme, but in those moments of them sitting on a bench or laying in the grass at a park, is where nothing needs to be said, to know how they are feeling towards one another.
When you study the hunger from Adéle, and how that is both literally and figuratively filled over the course of the runtime, it shows how food is a strong theme for Adéle. She is first seen devouring spaghetti, before meeting Emma, and her first experience eating mussels, being with Emma, shows she is exploring her openness beyond sexuality, and is now much more open-minded. As the movie progresses into Chapter 2 of their lives together as a couple living together, we see Adéle make food for Emma’s artistic friends, and she prepares the spaghetti, both very mindfully, but also in the form of perfection as to impress Emma’s friends to reinforce her attempts to fit into a group that doesn’t necessarily fit her interests. Through these scenes, we are able to see the one thing the director, and both lead actresses excelled at, which was the complexity of managing a relationship when your individualities do not intersect, and how that could be the real downfall of a relationship. Everything seemed to be going great between Emma and Adéle, until Adéle began her career path as an assistant teacher, where she gained an affection for someone who was more in line with her prospected future. Having this, it was likely to create a division within Adéle, and for her to decide how much of herself she wanted to have in common with her partner, regardless of sexuality. This is what drove her to cheat: finding a partner with more in common.
Blue is the Warmest Color, is a movie of love and heartbreak, that tugs on the strings of losing oneself, to learn about another’s whole world. It shares in the exploration of the sexuality, self, career choices, food, and vulnerability. It teaches us that even out of heartbreak and the most complicated situations, it can all be worth the journey.
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