Last summer, the world was introduced to the French film “Blue Is the Warmest Color,” or “La Vie d’Adèle.”
Two years earlier, filmmaker Abdellatif Kechiche found inspiration from Julie Maroh’s graphic novel Le Bleu Est une Couleur Chaude to direct his own screen interpretation of a teenage girl who falls in love with another girl.
The final product saw a huge reception during the 2013 film festival circuit and 2014 award season. Western movie audiences have seen the occasional male gay couple on screen like with Tom Hanks and Antonio Banderas in Jonathan Demme’s “Philadelphia” and Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain.” But mainstream films centered on lesbian protagonists have been rare.
Newcomer Adèle Exarchopoulos was hand-chosen by Kechiche to portray the lead protagonist (even going as far as to rename the character from Clementine to Adèle), and French starlet Léa Seydoux spent a year coloring her boyishly cut hair blue to portray love interest Emma.
While a lot of the film’s praise went to Kechiche and Ghalia Lacroix’s adaptation efforts, the two women’s performances gained the most praise of all.
The film was given the Palm d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the actresses won Chopard Trophies at the event. Seydoux, who has been working in Europe and the U.S. for a decade, received the most acclaim of her career to date, and Exarchopoulos was chosen as Most Promising Actress by the National Board of Review, César Awards and Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
But while “Blue” garnered rave reviews and fans, there also was some scandal over the film being rated NC-17 in America for three graphic love scenes. Despite being called one of the best coming-of-age and modern romance features, many viewers (including the original author herself) of all orientations found the sexual content indulgent and excessive, bordering on pornographic.
Arguments were made for the “less is more” strategy that seemed to work with the lesbian couple in “Mulholland Drive” 12 years earlier, or that the sex felt out of place and forced in an otherwise wonderful film.
And to top it off, even more gossip was born around the film’s shoot when both actresses (most vocally Seydoux) remarked that they were uncomfortable with Kechiche’s directing style, claiming they would spend up to a week filming a nude scene or hundreds of takes on a dramatic sequence. Kechiche rebuked their accusations, causing a rift between the performers and the artist.
There also were contemplations about whether Adèle’s character is a lesbian or bisexual, as she has intimate relationships with men and women throughout the three-hour tale.
“Blue is the Warmest Color” took a year to film and edit, and spent another year on screen at film fests and arthouse theaters. Exarchopoulos and Seydoux have vibrant careers ahead of them. Seydoux already acted in the huge indie hit “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “La Belle et la Bête” last spring, and Exarchopoulos starred in “Insecure” this summer.
“Blue” itself continues to find movie fans and shout-outs, and is a landmark in contemporary cinema through acting, directing and storytelling. Even with the unnecessarily long sexual content, Kechiche’s film remains worthy of lasting relevancy in film history.
mbianco@durangoherald.com. Megan Bianco is a movie reviewer and contributes other entertainment-related features and articles.
