CNN—. American audiences are finally getting a chance to see what is being billed as one of the most sexually explicit films ever made (not counting pornography): "Blue Is the Warmest Color Gorgeouscinematography, direction, colors, lighting, and environments build up the amazingly thoughtful script and the incredibly subtle acting performances of the two leading ladies. Lea & Adele have such loving chemistry and give the performances of a lifetime. Blue Is the Warmest Color absolutely deserved and earned the Palme D'or at Cannes. Thelong love scenes between Emma and Adèle have garnered a lot of attention in discussions of Blue Is the Warmest Color. It's true, they're unusually lengthy and explicit for a non-porn film, but they function as character development, not titillation, demonstrating how completely Adèle commits to her love and the freedom and Fearless relatable and beautiful, this is one of the year's best. Holding you so close for so long, you won't want to break free. Read full review. 100. Steven Rea Nov 1, 2013. Blue Is the Warmest Color explores a life with a depth and force that would be scary - if it weren't so scarily good. Read full review. Intruth, it isn't sex per se that makes "Blue Is the Warmest Color" problematic; it's the patriarchal anxieties about sex, female appetite and maternity that leach into its sights and sounds and d63Hnuv. Rewatched Apr 17, 2021 Darren Carver-Balsiger’s review published on Letterboxd Cinema can only be judged in relation to the context in which you watch it. I first saw Blue is the Warmest Colour as a teenager and it deeply affected me. I also remember rewatching the second half at around 3am on some drunken night at university when everything had gone wrong, which admittedly was quite often at university. It's been over five years since then and I haven't seen it since. It's weird to look back at films that meant a lot to you and realise they might not hold up. With maturity I'm now more attuned to the criticisms of Blue is the Warmest Colour, especially those from the lesbian community. Yet this film still means a lot to me. Obviously I approach this film as a man, but I think Blue is the Warmest Colour taps into so much more about growth and early adulthood than just lesbian love, and so it has a lot of universality. I know that the conditions on set during filming were unacceptable, and I'd rather the film didn't exist than be made through harassment and violating labour laws. However in the contexts in which I previously watched Blue is the Warmest Colour, I found it to be the most profound and precious experience. Watching it now, I don't feel quite the same. But even with that caveat, it's hard to stop loving something that used to really matter to you. No matter what I will always hold Blue is the Warmest Colour in high of growing up and self-discovery can be so compelling if done right. In Blue is the Warmest Colour, the pain that lead character Adèle goes through seems so real and believable. I think it's because so much is naturalistic. Adèle's runny nose, tears, and messy eating all feel like something usually avoided in a world where cinema usually demands people look perfect. Here we see truly messy, irrational people. They're flawed, unsure of themselves, and get attached to each other in damaging ways. With a constantly pressing camera that captures all the awkward and small moments of life, Blue is the Warmest Colour is intoxicatingly intimate. I could get lost in its world is the Warmest Colour is about an intense love, one that begins almost from first sight. It makes desire complicated, depicting the initial nervous joy of love and also the pain of its deterioration. Adèle's journey through life and confusion is easy to feel, because it seems so real and relatable to the process of entering adulthood. It's also worth saying that this felt like a much more radical film in 2013, dealing with a lesbian relationship and homophobia in a more accessible and mainstream way than a lot of things before. It paved the way for Cannes to accept later films like Carol, The Handmaiden, and Portrait of a Lady on a sizeable class element to Blue is the Warmest Colour. Adèle, with her working class origins and job as a teacher, finds herself lonely in a relationship with Emma, a privileged woman trying to make it as an artist. As Emma cruises through life, Adèle must always do the hard work. In long sequences of art students discussing philosophy, Adèle is an ordinary person reduced to serving drinks. The use of a food is a constant in Blue is the Warmest Colour, used to define class and set boundaries as to who belongs in which group. Emma thinks work cannot make Adèle happy, expecting or demanding Adèle to be artistic and not practical. This is a film of making mistakes when trying to find happiness, and Adèle having to realise that as time passes the people around her are unaccepting. Part of me feels like Blue is the Warmest Colour is a critique of these privileged, detached, pretentious artfucks. Adèle should not conform to their wants, but instead be herself. Adèle spends years heartbroken and stagnating, but the film's ending is perhaps a sign of her breaking away from that and moving on. I am of the opinion that the breakup scene between Emma and Adèle is reason enough to consider this a masterpiece. It is one of the best scenes of the past decade and devastates me every time I see it. It reduces Adèle to a screaming child, seeming so pathetic, and yet it is so heartbreaking. In fact, the whole final hour is masterful and the conclusion perfectly understated. When the end credits roll, I feel emotionally destroyed. Even now, when the film impacts me less, it still hits me hard. Emma and Adèle are always at different stages in their lives, and so the final scenes are inevitable. Weirdly I too am at a different stage in my life and so I increasingly feel more satisfied by the ending which keeps them least interesting moments of Blue is the Warmest Colour are the sex scenes, but they are the thing I see the most frequently discussed, which is a shame. They are rather distancing and cold, which is quite unlike everything else. There's no denying that the sexual imagery is near pornographic and essentially elevated male gaze art. Yet while this may be an inaccurate and problematic representation, I find those scenes work as a metaphor for the intensity of the central relationship. They also represent an eroticised ideal that cannot be realised or sustain itself, and indeed the characters outgrow it. Emma moves on even though she acknowledges that her new partner does not match Adèle sexually. I think Blue is the Warmest Colour ends up with a double-edged sword, as the sex scenes are the worst thing in the film, but without them the film wouldn't be what it is. The film would not function as an examination of sexuality or one about finding identity through sex. It's also a film without sentimentality for sex, presenting it as a matter of fact without shame nor judgment. Women are far more able to critique those scenes than me, but as the sex scenes make up such a small part of the runtime I find it sad that they overshadow so much else that is great in Blue is the Warmest is the Warmest Colour is one of the best films I know of when it comes to capturing the awkward transition from teenager to adult. As I have changed and grown up, the film works in different ways for me. It is a work about finding yourself, rejecting what others assume of you, and learning to ride through complicated feelings. It is real and rich in detail. There are problems in how this film was made, but in the context I exist in now Blue is the Warmest Colour still deeply moves my heart and I cannot reject its RankedMy Top Films of the 2010s Block or Report Darren liked these reviews

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