~post by Katie G.
Cover to Reel is a regular column in which I offer my two cents about that age-old debate about whether or not a movie did any kind of justice to the book it’s based on.
Blue is the Warmest Color (or, La Vie d’Adele – Chapitres 1 & 2) on DVD came out on Tuesday. Under much controversy following it’s release, it still received extremely positive reviews by the film community.
Julie Maroh, the author/artist of the graphic novel, has come out against the movie. She praised the film as, “coherent, justified and fluid.” As an adaptation, she was left wondering where exactly all the lesbians were. And, I have to agree.
Maroh’s graphic novel is a well-paced, lyrical tragedy focused on a teenager-turned-adult grappling to accept herself. It’s especially poignant at a very critical time in the world when LGBT rights are, finally, starting to be legislated.
The version that Kechiche created for the screen is not a bad movie. It handles the difficult translation of inner voice & monologue to the screen well enough. It gets you under her skin, instead of into her diary, as it is in the novel.
The first half of the film is an almost page-for-page adaptation of Blue is the Warmest Color. Which makes it all that more shocking when it suddenly derails itself into Kechiche’s original screenplay with only a loose semblance to Maroh’s story. Her story is about sex, love and the war within oneself during those formative years of becoming both an adult & an individual. But, his movie isn’t that. It’s a movie about pure carnal desire. And…that’s about it.
Many have accused the director of voyeurism, and I don’t believe they’re far off. A side character in the film talks about women. How men can’t possibly hope to understand a woman’s experience of pleasure, and thus it’s impossible for them to honestly depict such feelings in any artistic endeavor.
As soon as he strays from the pages of Blue is the Warmest Color, we lose touch with any sort of story. Instead, we watch the expression of a young woman’s id at play. The movie cut out all the back story that was important to understanding the two main characters’ relationship. More importantly, it left out the reality.
Like the character in the movie talking about women, I have to believe that Kechiche has no idea how to begin to express women’s souls artistically. But, whoa daddy, does he love imagining them in the sack. Many, including Maroh, have criticized the sex scenes saying they feel heterosexualized.
The two actresses talked about the cruel treatment and harassment they endured from the director, even vowing never to work with him again. However, Lea Seydoux (who plays Emma) gave an interview not long after the screening at Cannes saying, “The way he treats us? So What!”
How you react to Seydoux’s statement, I feel, speaks to how you’ll grade this movie. Either, you’ll praise it for it’s aesthetic style & brave effort to shove lesbianism in your face (which, frankly, some people need) while ignoring the fact that it really treats women as objects – as is far too common I’m afraid. Or, you’ll be disappointed. Why can’t women have the whole enchilada? I want my issues to be out there, but I don’t want to have to forsake my voice to do it. I want to be seen as a woman, and not as a man would see me as a woman.
The best this movie has to offer is the hue of it’s title. I don’t believe a single frame in this movie goes by where there isn’t some hint of azure. It’s details like this that always get me.The worst this movie has to offer (SPOILER ALERT) is the fall-out & aftermath of Emma & Adele/Clementine. With so much cut out from their development as characters, you’re left viewing a scene that just feels hypocritical & cruel. Emma’s character is so wishy-washy, she’s completely lost from the character Maroh created. Maroh’s Emma is complex unlike Kechiche’s version that will jokingly call herself a dyke and will slander her partner without much hesitation.
I call this one for the book. The movie, I could take or leave. I think it is truly a subjective experience and difficult for me to say whether or not you’ll enjoy it. You’ll either love it – like Spielberg, Ang Lee & Nicole Kidman who gave it the Palm d’Or award at Cannes- or feel like it really doesn’t measure up.
I want more. I demand more from movies that are going to pave the way for women.
with all due respect but as a French speaker there are several points you’ve failed to mention.Intentionally or out of ignorance.You tell us.Maroh’s book won a comic book award years ago
1-SHE sold the rights to Kechiche who is the best director in France and has been for about a decade now.
2-Kechiche has always said that HIS movie was loosely based on Maroh’s book so if you were expecting a carbon copy of the books you need to read his interviews and those of the actresses.They’ve always been clear and consistent about that
3-According to Maroh herself who praised the movie;she felt slighted because Kechiche had the audacity to not invite her on the set of the movie and he didn’t invite her to walk the steps of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival when movies are shown there as was Blue and he didn’t thank her when Blue won and with all due respect the Award Winning actresses are not porn stars or gay in real life so I don’t know why some including YOU are so angry about those fake lesbian scenes and once more I don’t remember any whining about Brokeback Mountain written by a straight female;directed by a straight Asian male director and 2 straight men and every movie on lesbians shot by lesbian directors and lesbian actresses are utter rubbish.But a Tunisian straight male does a movie with 2 gorgeous and out of this world talented actresses and the FAKE and forced outrage reaches fever high! Why couldn’t a lesbian director brought this book and turn it into a movie with real lesbian actress if ALL that seems to matter are lesbian sex? So much whining after the fact;get it done but don’t be angry when the world showers that type of movie with praise and Awards!
L’auteure de la bande-dessinée s’exprime
Un étonnement que partage Julie Maroh, auteure de la bande-dessinée Le bleu est une couleur chaude, à l’origine du projet.
Sur son site internet, elle revient sur sa relation particulière avec le réalisateur. Très respectueuse du travail d’Abdellatif Kéchiche, elle se dit “comblée”, “ébahie” et “reconnaissante” mais émet toutefois des réserves.
Jamais conviée au tournage, ni même informée de son déroulement, Julie Maroh n’a pas été invitée à monter les marches, alors qu’elle avait “traversé la France pour se joindre à eux”. Lors de la remise de la Palme, le réalisateur n’a pas eu un mot pour elle.
http://www.rtl.fr/actualites/culture-loisirs/cinema/article/la-vie-d-adele-la-polemique-enfle-autour-du-film-7761784474
NOW Maroh herself had to some major damage herself when her praise for the movie came out and she was called out publicly;she then went on her site whining
I never expect a movie to be a carbon copy of the book. However, it was really shocking to me how the first hour follows the book so closely. The last 2/3 not only diverge from the story, but they loose the message completely. It’s forsaken for a view of women that is all about the “mystery” and none of the substance. That really has nothing to do with it being an adaptation. It’s just a view of women that I’m sick of seeing.
Also, yes, I immediately thought of Brokeback Mountain towards the latter part of this film. That movie is beautiful, as well. The aesthetics were very similar. But, the characters were given more. They had depth and passion. You understood both those men through both happiness and strife. I do not think this movie accomplished that.
Would you have enjoyed the film more if you had not already had the pleasure of reading the book?
I really do try to consider that. It’s an OK movie. It’s way too long, for one thing. The last 30 minutes are my least favorite. The movie had 2 endings, and the second one was not worth it at all. I would probably rate it, as a movie, with a B-.
I am a lesbian and seeing this film has given me a deep disgust and rejection of seeing a morbid bastard sadly reduces us to the same old thing: mere objects of male curiosity and porn. Here there is no depth, no brilliant script, no plot, no transcendent issue… nothing more than 15 minutes of ridiculous wild sex for men with the intention of selling the movie disguised as the biggest love history story ever told, but it’s only pornography. If two men have been the protagonists (or a man and a woman), the director would never have recreated in a sex scene between them like this and the movie would not have been so brightfull for critics. This movie offers nothing more than the curiosity of female homosexuality and especially the explicit images to prove it. If the couple had been heterosexual and if realistic sex had been treated in a more subtle manner, this movie never had been so praised. But of course, heterosexual critics liked it a lot and for that reason this film won Cannes. It sucks. What a shame.
I can’t admire nothing in a film with a male director abusing actresses and putting his pornish fantasies all over the screen and calling it art.
Julie Maroh wants to give visibility to the difficulties found by a teenager during the process of her sexual acceptance, and present a great love story. And of course, no one denies the need for the sex exists, but it is treated in a completely different way: aesthetically tasteful, respect and sensitivity. The problem is not with the explicit sex whenever it’s justified and well presented. The problem is when it was decided to show THIS WAY, through a lengthy scene with the sole purpose of creating curiosity and controversy. Which is the need of that? To provide a catalog of sexual positions to the audience? Those who have true sensitivity deeply despise this movie, so absurd and offensive as having made Ingrid Bergman fucking during 15 minutes in “Casablanca” (I don’t need to see it to understand their passion, so why with Adele and Emma we need to see seven orgasms to “understand” their desire? Does Kechiche believe we are idiots?)… “Blue is the warmest” is nothing more than commercial pornography disguised as hypocrite intensity. Many lesbians are very tired of hearing so many raves about this movie. If someone wants to shoot porn, well, do it, but don’t lie pretending it’s a different thing and don’t dare to disguise it as something else. It is clear that men heterosexual love lesbian theme and they feel attracted by it very much, but it’s so obvious to deny it later with such hypocrisy that we feel offended and outraged. The type who is excited watching sex between two women is as old as the world, and this movie feeds the same fantasy inside porn ones. This director has used lesbians through a film that is nothing more than a sexist and morbid appropriation.
The true talent of a director is his ability to show something without having to resort to the easiest resources but suggesting them. The film would have won in strength and universal message, not stay in a concessive and superficiality plane. Of course, without these very provocative scenes would not have caused so much excitement in the review.
We all know very well what has been the main attraction of this movie: the lesbian themes and sex scenes, without them nobody had talked about this film. Try to substitute one of the girls by a boy, the film would have passed completely unnoticed. Precisely people has talked so much about it for being two women, if we change one of them for a guy, what remains? A deep story or anything extraordinary? Here is no plot, no depth, no brilliant script, no powerful message… only sex. With excellent original story that he could have done, with a truly, wonderful and profound original work, Kechiche stayed in the easiest (why remove that scene, vital to the plot, expulsion from home by their parents? That scene itself that was necessary and not that other of the “scissors”), I find it very sad.
In short: this is a perfect example of how to reduce a fantastic original material into shit and hypocritically want to sell it as art. With an unbelievable story he had in his hands, and a great plot to develop, Kechiche wasted footage in scissors and cunnilingus to the delight of critics and straight wankers.
We, as lesbians, have struggled a lot to achieve respect from society since past years (and it still costs a lot) and suddenly we see exposed ourselves and visible only to promote male erotic myth. It’s very frustrating, because we feel as if everybody yell us when we express our disappoint: “You complain when you should applaud because we are showing lesbian life in an artistic and realistic way, you hysterical!!”. The same thing when women are “forced” to acknowledge receiving the compliment on the street they have not asked for. The day we see penises on screen with the same frequency that we see boobs we will be able to talk about equality… and until I don’t see a movie of the same director in which he recreates for 15 minutes in two men practicing “super justified” and ” super beautiful” anal sex, I will still continue thinking that he is nothing more a vulgar onanist who has just wanted to spead out his own fantasy and many men’s.
I loved the way the book used the diary. I thought it really gave an insight into Clementine that couldn’t be conveyed by flashbacks, or even first person. And of course it made the ending all the more heart-breaking. I did think the ending was trite however. I know as a lesbian I am supposed to hate and despise the movie and everyone associated with it. But I just can’t. My partner likes it as well, but not as much as me. She says she is tired of the “tragic” same-sex love theme, and I guess her point is it reinforces the hateful view that we are all “deviants” and therefore our relationships are just destined to be “tragic.” I can see that POV but I mean lighten the fuck up! (just kidding). I have no problem with sex or nudity, and I like pretty naked girls, so I was fine with the sex for the most part. except I have been surprised that more people haven’t mentioned the scissoring. I found that a bit implausible. I have tried that twice, and that shit is hard!!! You have to really be in shape, and as far as stimulating, i don’t know, it just seemed more work than it was worth, does anyone actually do that on a regular basis (outside of porn?). I positively adore the two actresses and their performance, especially Adele Ex, and I think the director did an excellent job with it. I just got a real sense that Adele loved life, period, whether marching against austerity, or for LGBT rights, her freaking funky dancing, being with her kids, not to mention her incredible relationship with her hair!! God I wish I could be that casual with my hair!! I have heard the actresses say directly contradictory things about the “controversy” I think most of it is the media generating heat not light. I do think if the director was female much of this criticism would be praise, a lot of it feels knee-jerk to me. I thought he handled the class issue better in the movie, Emma was much more of a careerist in the movie, and less lovable at the end, but the book was easier to follow, and you could appreciate the two main characters as human beings more because their stories were fleshed. In general I like the two stories pretty much equally.