, Blue Is the Warmest Colour (18.)
Directed by Abdellatif Kechiche.
Starring Adele Exarchopoulos, Lea Sedoux, Mona Waraven, Salim Kechiouche and Jeremie Laheurte. 179 mins
In the English speaking markets this film has been given a title that resembles a Chelsea football club anthem penned by Jeanette Winterton but in its native France it goes by the more prosaic La Vie de Adele. A much duller title, but to the point – Adele Exarchopoulos is the whole film. Sure, there is more to this film than a pretty face but maybe not much more. It is a very straightforward story – a young girl at school begins to explore her sexuality and after an unsatisfactory fling with a nice boy from the year above falls for a blue haired, slightly dykey artist called Emma (Sedoux.) The film making is even simpler – for most of the three hour running length director Kechiche plants the camera on her face and allows the rest of the world to pass by in the periphery.
It is a very pretty face but not a stunning face, not an exquisite beauty of a face and not one you’d think worthy of three hours of attention. It is though an almost uniquely expressive face. At one point another character accuses her of blushing and such an involuntary expression of her feeling sums up acting style. The emotions just seem to flow out of her effortlessly in a single unregulated flow. And there’s such intensity – the highs and lows and longings are painfully heartfelt.
You’d call it a great performance but there is nothing about it that suggests a “performance.” (Maybe in just a few scenes at the end can you see her acting.) She is so guileless and open it is almost like a really great child actor. That’s not meant as a putdown though it has to be said that Adele is one of the most innocent and wide eyed French heroines ever - Amelie is a manipulative cow by comparison. Even when Adele betrays her lover she seems somehow to be a helpless victim of her desires.
The film’s total absorption in its lead character means that we only get odds and ends of what’s going on around her. Other than the central relationship between Adele and Emma, nothing else gets played out in full, we never find out what happened to old friends and relationship or if Adele ever comes out to her parents. People and situation are there for a moment and are then left behind as the narrative has jumped forward an unspecified distance in time. (At some point at the end you realise you must have been following these characters for the best part of a decade and it is a shock.) Early on one of her teachers explains the definition of tragedy and it appears to be a hint but the film doesn’t take such an obvious path, though her heartache is perhaps even more poignant.
I imagine the decision of the Steven Spielberg-led jury to give the top prize at Cannes this year to a three hour lesbian epic raised eyebrows but it is an intense and moving experience. The film includes some graphic sex scenes and though it is expected of film reviewers to write about how they are not titillating, they absolutely are. In a film so packed with life and passion it would be frankly indecent if they weren’t.
Directed by Abdellatif Kechiche.
Starring Adele Exarchopoulos, Lea Sedoux, Mona Waraven, Salim Kechiouche and Jeremie Laheurte. 179 mins
In the English speaking markets this film has been given a title that resembles a Chelsea football club anthem penned by Jeanette Winterton but in its native France it goes by the more prosaic La Vie de Adele. A much duller title, but to the point – Adele Exarchopoulos is the whole film. Sure, there is more to this film than a pretty face but maybe not much more. It is a very straightforward story – a young girl at school begins to explore her sexuality and after an unsatisfactory fling with a nice boy from the year above falls for a blue haired, slightly dykey artist called Emma (Sedoux.) The film making is even simpler – for most of the three hour running length director Kechiche plants the camera on her face and allows the rest of the world to pass by in the periphery.
It is a very pretty face but not a stunning face, not an exquisite beauty of a face and not one you’d think worthy of three hours of attention. It is though an almost uniquely expressive face. At one point another character accuses her of blushing and such an involuntary expression of her feeling sums up acting style. The emotions just seem to flow out of her effortlessly in a single unregulated flow. And there’s such intensity – the highs and lows and longings are painfully heartfelt.
You’d call it a great performance but there is nothing about it that suggests a “performance.” (Maybe in just a few scenes at the end can you see her acting.) She is so guileless and open it is almost like a really great child actor. That’s not meant as a putdown though it has to be said that Adele is one of the most innocent and wide eyed French heroines ever - Amelie is a manipulative cow by comparison. Even when Adele betrays her lover she seems somehow to be a helpless victim of her desires.
The film’s total absorption in its lead character means that we only get odds and ends of what’s going on around her. Other than the central relationship between Adele and Emma, nothing else gets played out in full, we never find out what happened to old friends and relationship or if Adele ever comes out to her parents. People and situation are there for a moment and are then left behind as the narrative has jumped forward an unspecified distance in time. (At some point at the end you realise you must have been following these characters for the best part of a decade and it is a shock.) Early on one of her teachers explains the definition of tragedy and it appears to be a hint but the film doesn’t take such an obvious path, though her heartache is perhaps even more poignant.
I imagine the decision of the Steven Spielberg-led jury to give the top prize at Cannes this year to a three hour lesbian epic raised eyebrows but it is an intense and moving experience. The film includes some graphic sex scenes and though it is expected of film reviewers to write about how they are not titillating, they absolutely are. In a film so packed with life and passion it would be frankly indecent if they weren’t.
