Foreign Pick: Blue Is The Warmest Color
I’ve refused thus far to recommend this movie in our weekly article, not because I believe it’s not worth watching — and it totally is —but because I couldn’t find a good way to sum it all up in a few paragraphs; it’s a three-hour long movie after all. Nevertheless, after much deliberation, I decided to include Blue Is The Warmest Color, winner of the 2013 Palm d’Or award at Cannes.
You should know right off the bat this movie divides critics to the point that a fistfight could break out at a film festival where it’s shown. The performances, brilliant in their naturalistic approach, have captivated audiences all over the globe. Director Abdellatif Kechice, deemed misogynistic for the graphic sex scenes he employs in the film, has even gone as far as stating that Blue Is The Warmest Color perhaps wasn’t ready to see the light of day.
Yet it all begins with a fifteen-year old. She pays little attention to romance, gossip, or boys in general. Adéle merely sticks to attending school, and protesting from time to time. A kiss from a female classmate and the appearance of blue-hair goddess Emma, however, will take the protagonist on a journey from which she won’t come back unscathed.
I’m not exaggerating when I state that Blue Is The Warmest Color turned out to be one of the best foreign-language movies I’d seen in months. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t hesitate to rank it among my top ten French movies.
Truly, I’m not saying it because of the fantastic dialogue, Kechiche’s assured direction, or even the accolade-deserving actors — even though these feats certainly help — but rather the movie’s ability to come off as a series of regular events in a confused teenager’s life. It’s not elegant or embellished; in fact, it’s sloppy and awkward — just the way life is.