Is Blue Still the Warmest Color? A 10-Year Retrospective on the Controversial French Romance

It’s rare that movies achieve the particular kind of simultaneous acclaim and controversy that surrounded Blue is the Warmest Color (2013) upon its initial premiere at Cannes Film Festival. Whilst universally lauded by critics and even winning the coveted Palme D’or, the film drew controversy over its highly graphic sex scenes, as well as director Abdellatif Kachiche‘s intense directing methods. Throughout this article, I’m going to delve deep into these specific issues, the pros and cons of the movie itself, and whether it still holds up a decade after its initial release.

What’s The Film About, and What Works About It?

For those unfamiliar, Blue is the Warmest Color is a French graphic novel adaptation about a young woman named Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos), who goes on a tumultuous journey of self-discovery as she enters into a relationship with Emma (Léa Seydoux), a spirited artistic type with blue hair. That’s essentially it, and the movie simply observes Adele’s journey over the course of three hours. This naturalistic approach works sublimely for a few reasons: the subjective use of close-ups and medium close-ups in its cinematography, its dialogue and performances, and the lack of time cards in the editing. By relying mostly on those two camera angles, and focusing so squarely in Adele’s perspective throughout the film, we feel everything she feels, experience everything she experiences, with such full intensity and vulnerability that wouldn’t have been achieved otherwise.

Additionally, the dialogue and acting feel remarkably unrehearsed, as if we aren’t watching actors, but merely regular people living their lives. According to IMDb, “The actresses only read the script once. Abdellatif Kachiche insisted they forget what the script said word for word, and instead asked them to improvise their scenes and really let their actions and words come out naturally and as unforced as possible.” While unconventional, this adds to the lifelike feeling of the project as a whole. Nobody sounds like a character trying to seem clever, or as if they’re telegraphing plot points for later. They talk about their interests, their personal histories, they hesitate and stutter sometimes. I often have to remind myself I’m watching a cast reciting dialogue, it’s so authentic.

The lack of on-screen text to signal the passage of time also is crucial to the overarching effect of the picture for a couple of reasons. One, it feels like the progression of events occurs more organically. Characters’ hairstyles, conversations, as well as work and living situations, often are the signifiers of how much time has passed. Two, despite the runtime only being three hours, you actually feel like you’re experiencing several years of Adèle’s coming-of-age journey, whilst simultaneously never feeling like the pace drags. It’s a tricky balance, but editors Sophie Brunet, Ghalya Lacroix, Camille Toubkis, Albertine Lestera, and Jean-Marie Lengelle deserve all the credit in the world for that achievement.

Addressing the Controversies

However, not everything about this movie succeeds with flying colors. The notorious sex scenes, which were the sole reason for the MPA assigning this the NC-17 rating, do mostly feel pornographic, and with two exceptions, don’t add anything to the characterization or overall story. When Adèle and Emma make love for the first time, it goes on for several minutes, merely lingers on the sex itself, and ignores how this feels for Adèle, who’s never been with a woman and is only recently realizing she is a lesbian. A lot of the intimate scenes work like this. The only occasions where the sexuality adds to the narrative are when A) Adèle has a dream about Emma and wakes up in a panic, stressed about these feelings she hasn’t had before, and B) when Adèle tries having sex with a guy, and she quickly realizes that it simply does nothing for her. This adds to her steadily mounting evidence that she doesn’t have any feelings, period, for the guy she’s dating. If only the majority of the sex scenes worked that way, there might’ve been merit for keeping them in the final edit.

On top of that, news of Kechiche’s harsh directorial ethic emerged quickly when the movie first made its rounds at festivals. According to Vulture, on May 23, “French film union Spiac-CGT released a statement to the press leveling complaints against the director… Kechiche and his team had violated the Labor Code with ‘workdays of 16 hours reported as 8.'” The organization also gave accounts of “an “anarchic” schedule and a “bullying” atmosphere.” The cast themselves also spoke of their experiences on set, stating that “the film looks so real because Kechiche pushed them to their breaking point, and that they were really struggling.” While the end product may have turned out rather well anyway, it’s important to acknowledge the ugly side of the movie’s production, with Kechiche having clearly been a rather tyrannical director on set.

The Takeaway

With both of these issues in mind, does the movie still work a decade later? In my opinion, yes. The sex scenes only take up fifteen minutes of the 179-minute runtime, with most of it focusing on the everyday experiences of Adèle and Emma. Additionally, the other strengths I mentioned make it an enriching cinematic experience. I can see why the Cannes jury in 2013 awarded the Palme D’or to not only Kachiche, but to Exarchopoulos and Seydoux as well. Because of the acting, the editing, the cinematography, and the writing, Blue is the Warmest Color is a flawed but powerful piece of LGBTQ moviemaking. If you haven’t seen it and love foreign cinema, or you’re a fan of romantic dramas and coming-of-age stories, this one definitely warrants a watch.

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