A 15-year-old languishing in a provincial French high school, several notches from hip, is laid low by love at first sight, the sight of an older art student with blue hair, sashaying across campus on the arm of an older babe. We've long known that sexual freedom is life's most intoxicating cocktail, for its own sake, and for the gateway it offers to everything that really matters. Is Blue Is the Warmest Color art-house cinema's way of telling us that a kind of 60s-style revival is underway? Already some bold critics are hailing Blue as the year's best film �" nay, the first masterpiece of the new century! A big New York art-house chain has proclaimed that it will wink at Blue's NC-17 rating, normally the film police's way of keeping precocious high school seniors from getting too early a bite at the apple. And in a telling sign that the Victorian iceberg is finally melting, some critics say that Blue isn't merely a lesbian film, but rather a universal statement suitable for all. Wow! So what's the deal on this buzz-worthy masterpiece that got the Cannes Film Festival's top prize?
At first glance, Adele is a directionless schoolgirl with a notion she wants to be a teacher, a vague crush on handsome boy Thomas, a good-natured gay buddy Valentin, but a life that lacks that spark or kick in the head from the universe that says, "This is your fate, honey, your karma, so be off with you!" Sex with Thomas (the flirty Jeremie Laheurte) doesn't ignite, and Adele learns the harsh but necessary lesson that people can drop you even faster than they picked you up. Joining Valentin (Sandor Funtek) for a whirl through their small town's gay pubs, Adele spots a blue-haired young woman, Emma, an artist she had previously chatted up on campus.
Emma is trouble, at least for Adele, with her posse of mean-girl classmates. As soon as the word hits her school that Adele may be "going" with Emma, the homo bullying begins in earnest, and I don't mean cyber-bullying, but the real face-to-face kind that can lead to hair-pulling, slaps, eye-gouging punches. But before her life descends into that hell, Adele abandons the dolts and gets down with Emma.
Written and directed by Tunisian-born Abdellatif Kechiche, co-written by Ghalya Lacroix, adapted from Julie Maroh's graphic novel Le Bleu Est une Couleur Chaude, Blue stretches the boundaries of the classic coming-of-age tale into a three-hour intimate epic. Steven Spielberg's Cannes Festival Jury gave Blue the Palme d'Or top prize with the grace note that the award be shared for the first time ever by the terrific young actors Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux. In particular, Exarchopoulos, 18 at the time of shooting, gives one of the best stabs at aging convincingly on camera since Leo DiCaprio cornered the market on this precious skill. Both women deliver naturalistic performances that transcend their much-ballyhooed extended sex scenes. But just as Scorsese's Raging Bull rose or fell by the 12 brilliantly choreographed minutes of simulated boxing, Blue will forever be praised or damned by filmgoers' gut-level reactions to 10 minutes of simulated sexual gymnastics that leave standard film sex in the dustbin of celluloid history.
Sex on screen is always a tricky proposition. Back in the 70s, Pauline Kael lost her mind over Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris, in which Marlon Brando's drowning man surrendered to/dominated Maria Schneider, aided by a stick of butter in a huge, empty Parisian apartment. Tango, likely Brando's best screen work, may seem dated today, but what's wrong with dated anyway? Sometimes all great art has to do is devour the sacred cows of its own day. And on this score, Blue delivers big-time. First, that 10-minute romp annihilates the normal film stopwatch on how long lovers can hold a clinch. Good riddance! Second, Blue transcends the mottled conventions of porn. The fact that its source material is a graphic novel is a big plus at a time when graphic novels, YouTube channels and video games are among art's most vital creative tributaries. Finally, Blue 's sweaty rondo plants the couple firmly in a relationship from which each will derive different lessons. Eventually, class will trump climax. And in an emotionally wrenching final shot, the filmmakers show Adele leaving us and a chapter in her life, in an extended screen moment that is as effective as Truffaut's transcendent freeze-frame on his alter ego, Antoine Doinel, in The 400 Blows' last glorious gulp of freedom. No higher praise exists.