Blue Is the Warmest Color movie review (2013)
As it happens, that's not the thing that starts to drive the lovers apart. I am loath to give away the plot details that some say constitute spoilers, but on the other hand, as I said up front, this is a story of first love, and all stories of first love wind up somehow as stories of first love betrayed. And once the hurting starts, the performances grow more wondrous and sad. So much so that one isn't much bothered by the material that Kechiche elides in his long film.
Oddly, after going to great pains to establish the homophobia of Adèle's high-school could-become-mean-girl chums, Kechiche doesn't depict the way it might have deposited any fallout in Adèle's life as she moves from school to apprenticeship teaching; nor, after showing a "we're just study friends" dinner at which Adèle introduces Emma to her parents, do we see any of Adele's family life after she moves in with Emma. In the aftermath of viewing, this strikes one as odd.
Then there's the ostensible "male gaze" issue. Yes, Kechiche is a male depicting lesbian love; and yes, he's a heterosexual male depicting lesbian love enacted between two very attractive actresses. He frequently frames Exarchopoulos in particular so as to accentuate the post-adolescent ripeness of her beauty. (There's a scene in the movie where Emma and Adèle admire the perfect female posteriors in marble at a museum that suggests Kechiche's potential apologia: that everyone should be able to appreciate a beautiful derriere.)
As a heterosexual male myself I am of, well, several minds about this. Having a healthy "love" for the female form, one may sensibly argue, is not the same thing as leering at it. And it isn't as if Kechiche is Max Hardcore, for heaven's sake. But suggestions that he got a little carried away here are not totally nuts.
In any event, this sort of thing is exactly what sets off the most stimulating kinds of post-moviegoing discussions. If "Blue is the Warmest Color" is not a masterpiece, and I don't think it is, it's certainly a provocation, but not a puerile one. Its multi-chambered heart is certainly in one or two of the right places, let's say.
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