Adapted from Julie Maroh’s graphic novel Blue Angel, Blue is the Warmest Color illustrates the arc of Adele and Emma’s relationship, from its coy beginning to its tumultuous cum ambiguous end. Divided rather neatly into three separate periods of time, the film is gentle when it introduces the intelligent, pretty, and somewhat shy Adele (Adele Exchopoulos). A high school junior, Adele has her clique of girls in and outside of school. Together, they smoke and discuss boys, though Adele is a bit less vocal about any sexual exploits, in part because she is curious and confused, something that we see compelled by a quick glimpse and pass of Emma (Lea Seydoux), a blue-haired fine arts student who exists with the confidence and self-awareness that Adele seeks. Throughout the first third of the film, Adele’s wardrobe is smattered with shades of blue, a symbol that her and Emma’s connection is predestined – like the arc of the novel, Life of Marienne, that Adele reads.
At first, there is nothing more than Adele’s infatuation with the idea of Emma. She sees Emma, but they don’t exchange a word until a later scene. However, Adele intensely dreams of having sex with Emma. In turn, Adele goes on a few dates with a young man and eventually has sex with him. He is kind and cuddles her, but she looks uncomfortable throughout the graphic sequence. Blue is the Warmest Color tackles Adele’s discomfort magnificently. Sadness and fear play out in Adele’s face. She is tortured by confusion and the “something missing” and forced to circulate in a population of teenagers who experiment with same-sex flings but only for the sake of doing so. Meanwhile, Adele must put on the guise of experimentation while fighting a natural desire.
Blue also tackles the bumpy discourse of same sex relationships. Homosexuality appears accepted, as there are openly gay characters, but this is when they are at a distance or displays of affection are hidden in respective gay and lesbian clubs. Some spout vitriol when it is assumed that Adele is a lesbian, but only because she is familiar to their home and social circle. At once acceptance is obvious from a distance, but hidden up close.
Soon, Adele and Emma become a couple and their connection is beautiful and sensual. Their sex is intense and is seemingly never ending. On the one hand, there is not male orgasm – the stereotypical end to sex; rather, there is a perpetual continuation filled with numerous orgasms. Whereas Adele’s encounter with a man ended with her looking blankly away, each scene with Emma ends with their bodies exhausted and intertwined.
In more ways than just sexually, Adele and Emma feed off each other. Adele gets to find herself and Emma finds her “muse” – a word that adds further complexity to their relationship. Throughout, we wonder whether the relationship is mutual, symbiotic, or parasitic. Each takes something from the other and each seems to exist alongside the other at times. This parasitism is not mutually exclusive to just Emma, who might be perceived as the “villain” by the end of the film. Rather, it’s shared, but subtle enough to force us to question how we see both women. While Emma clearly tries to find a way out of the relationship, Adele doesn’t always seem committed, inasmuch as her general ethos is to follow “what interests” her at the time. This is true for her interests in literature, varying philosophies, and her future occupation.
Despite the wonderful performances in this film and the genuinely sweet and heartbreaking story, there is an ironically misogynistic glitch in the narrative. This glitch is not atypical. It existed in Maroh’s original text, and it existed in The Kids are All Right, a film that has many more flaws than Blue is the Warmest Color.
[Beware of spoilers below]
As Adele and Emma’s relationship becomes strained, Adele begins to go out more with a male colleague. Together, they dance and share an apparently passionate, drunken kiss. Shortly after, the fractures in Emma and Adele’s relationship come to the surface and Adele admits to sleeping with the colleague “two or three times” because she “felt alone.” An “affair trope” is nothing new. It illustrates rebellion and confusion. It provides an artery for conflict, sorrow, remorse, or ending. At the same time – much like in the graphic novel and The Kids are All Right – Adele’s choice to rebel by sleeping with a man is nonsensical. One could argue that lesbianism, for Adele, is a fad, but this is difficult to prove given the abject discomfort she felt with the first man she slept with, the way in which she adamantly denied being gay in front of her friends, despite her tears and quivering voice, the joy she felt from kissing her first girl on a fire escape outside the high school, and the seemingly genuine passion she consistently felt for Emma.
That said, this logic dictates that affairs in movies involving heterosexuals should be homosexual, and it would be completely understood by the audience.
Regardess, ninety-five percent of Blue is the Warmest Color is amazing.