The scene sets the actresses more in decorative, artistic poses than in the wild, messy jumble of mouths and limbs we expect. An abundance of scenes feature close-ups, mostly of Adèle, of her face, her lips, her mouth, and her body - the latter often in the repose of the 15-century Renaissance reclining nude. It's essential to her character that we understand her insatiable appetite - for love, for food, for sex - but this excess of close-up shots constructs the dichotomy of sexual objectification and feminine idealism, casting Adèle as both erotic object and mystical goddess. The much-debated sex scene has been discussed frequently for its graphic nature, but its representation of lesbian sex is far off the mark, says Maroh, whose Le Bleu Est une Couleur Chaude inspired Blue. "This was what was missing on the set: lesbians," she wrote after the film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, also noting she found it "a brutal and surgical display, exuberant and cold, of so-called lesbian sex, which turned into porn." During the screening, "the gay and queer people laughed because it's not convincing, and find it ridiculous, and among the only people we didn't hear giggling were guys too busy feasting their eyes on an incarnation of their fantasies on screen," she said. It's a feeling that envelops the film, creating an overwhelming sense that we are being told how to watch a relationship, one that the director can neither relate to nor accurately portray. It's hard not to hear English art critic John Berger whispering his oft-cited line, "Men look at women, women watch themselves being looked at." The women in the paintings are being watched by women being watched by an audience, but through a male lens. In a scene where Adèle and Emma are walking through a museum, they (and the camera, in close-ups) admire female nude sculptures and paintings.
They had to be made aesthetically beautiful while keeping the sexual dimension." But this artistic rendering effectively creates a perspective reminiscent of Lolita: we are not meant to know the characters we are meant to watch them, to admire them, and to idealize them. We spent a lot of time lighting them to ensure they would look beautiful after, the innate choreography of the loving bodies took care of the rest, very naturally. So we shot them like paintings, like sculptures. In an interview with film website Flicks and Bits, he said, "What I was trying to do when we were shooting these scenes was to film what I found beautiful. Kechiche has said openly that he meant to portray the female body in an idealized way. The film follows their changing sexual desires as they fall in and out of love. It's chiefly the coming-of-age tale of Adèle, a 15-year-old with a voracious appetite for all things, who falls for blue-haired Emma, an artist. The film follows Exarchopoulos and Seydoux as characters Adèle and Emma, respectively, as they dive into a romantic relationship. This detracts greatly from its exploration of sexual experiences and millennial frustrations. It's clear that Kechiche took no pains to remove his male perspective to tell the story of a female, non-heterosexual relationship - a move that ultimately reduces the film to objectification, idealism, and voyeurism.
Julie Maroh, the author of the graphic novel from which the film was adapted, criticized the portrayal of lesbian sex.īut what's most upsetting about Blue is the very distinct male gaze behind the camera. It's the seven-minute-long sex scene between the movie's two stars, Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux, that's generating the most buzz, as well as statements from the two actresses openly expressing dislike for the demanding director. This article originally appeared on PolicyMic.īlue is the Warmest Color, the French romantic drama written, produced, and directed by Abdellatif Kechiche, has generated a host of controversy since its win at the Cannes film festival this May and recent October 25 U.S.