Blue Is the Warmest Color

From the first moment, it is clear to you that this was filmed by a creator who knew exactly how to handle each scene. If he wanted to present desire, he succeeds perfectly, but also boredom, hesitation, inability to fit into a group, beauty and spontaneity of lovemaking, as well as sweating and the speed of sex. Three hours, and yet every scene is in its place. One cannot even believe it until they see it. And what is the most beautiful thing about it? Abdellatif Kechiche simply portrayed things (relationships) as they are, he did not embellish anything, he was only realistic, which sometimes means being cruel. It may not look nice, but why not capture reality as it sometimes is? Thanks to Adèle Exarchopoulos, you can see how many dimensions human nature has. We are not just good or bad, sometimes we are disgusting, sometimes devoted, sometimes naive, sometimes foolish, sometimes completely indifferent, and at other times... different. One person can handle all of this. Abdellatif Kechiche convinces me, after "Black Venus," that the audience can handle reality and it does not have to be exaggerated, sometimes it is enough to simply let the camera look. Nevertheless, I can't help it, the length is excessive. (2014-01-27)

The problem isn’t in its (justified) enormous length, but it should have taken a break between chapters 1 and 2. A good few years too, to let Adele grow up, because it seems quite out of place when, in the second phase, the scarcely twenty-year-old girl plays a middle aged woman and all that was different from her teenage phase were the glasses. Another problem are the explicit sex scenes; how they were performed didn’t fit with the mood of the movie. More than anything else, it seems like Kechiche wanted to quench his thirst for slapping young meat on set. Paradoxically, the best bed scene was the dialog after the garden party. And not least is the problematic closing twenty minutes when it gradually fizzles out in a way quite unfair to the qualities of the rest of the movie. These difficulties still don’t outweigh the fact that there are still entire passages (enough to make a long feature movie) when the story of Adele and Emma’s relationship is unrivalled in authenticity, drawing the viewer through all of the good and bad emotions that are integral to any relationship. P.S.: If you are racking your brains about the role of the diary that there so much secret and important talk about, but then nothing (not even the MacGuffin), so I recommend finding out what work this is based on and what the narrative style the original is. (2013-11-22)

What to say about a movie that lasts three hours and you're not bored for a minute, in fact, you'd gladly watch another hour... A very impressive, extremely intense, and thoroughly immersive cinematic experience! That's how I want to express my feelings. Moreover, the actress playing the lead role could not have been better chosen, as she did not just play Adèle, she lived her. I could go on and on about the story of the intimate lesbian relationship between Adèle and Emma, with a lot of great dialogue, but I don't think it would do much good. It can't be told because it has to be seen to understand the genius of this emotionally intense relationship film. (95%) (2020-05-12)

I’ll be honest, I was afraid of this. My subjective viewer experience was terrified of a three-hour long French lesbian art film, and I believed that not even the fact that it will probably be a very good three-hour long French lesbian art film would help. But the fears were unwarranted, the film gripped me from the beginning and didn’t let me go until the end. Fantastic performances, incredibly firm direction; a thrilling experience. I wouldn’t cut a single minute of it, every scene in Blue is the Warmest Colour makes sense. (2013-12-16)

It’s very rare to see a festival flick so relatable, with artistic choices that fully support the power of the message and the emotional effect. The three-hour series of details on the faces of actors, whose ordinary activities deliberately don’t deviate from the process of the heroine’s development, may have some passages that are almost unnecessarily long, but the creator would be able to justify them without hesitation. We are not only watching Adele, we are Adele and we are experiencing with her tense moments as participatorily as the film medium will allow. The sex scenes are perhaps too long, but also inevitable, given the consistency of the process of following the internal and sexual development of a fragile heroine, and they are also pleasant for the male viewer (both actresses not only act great but look great, too). Sexuality can be a heavy burden and here we see it unadorned and very realistic. 85% (2020-09-20)