“BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR” ***
Three stars, an undeniable good work, but there are three points to be discussed through the most polemic and acclaimed film of the year. First, Cannes remains being the most respectable Festival in the world, bringing the greatest artworks together to kick off a new year. But sometimes the Palm D’Or is misguided and becomes familiar with the same strategies the Academy rules and classifies the films, business way. Lately the most celebrated films have been dividing critics and also audiences, which is normal. Some more enthusiastic moviegoers would say a film is good, just because the fact many critics have praised it and it carries the essence of art cinema. But nothing and no one can change one’s mind or taste, or preferences, and at the end, cinema needs to be magical and entertaining at first, to seduce in its unique art. In an introduction of his film, director Abdellatif Kechiche said that the film praises love, life and freedom. But what’s one’s meaning when referring to freedom? Would that resonates to bringing explicit sex to common cinema, in a form of introducing porn into story-telling? Far from being moralist, my perspective is only one: do audiences really need to experience the private pleasures of the characters in order to understand a presumptuous realistic piece of art? Cinema has been breaking taboos since its early days, improving, portraying the faces of the world but I disagree on this new trend of sex exploitation in Cinema. Why do most of the celebrated films now-a-days, are called realistic due to its depictions on real sex? I really don’t think that’s the meaning of freedom. The porn industry is there for it, offering satisfaction on the practice of voyeurism; and Cinema is here to open minds to new experiences, especially those impossible to get. And finally, as a modern society, aren’t filmmakers aware that most people have lost interest for long films? Isn’t a 2-Hour period enough to explore their imagination?
Despite all the buzz and polemic surrounding the film, “Blue” is a romantic and extremely intense drama about Adele, a gorgeous young girl who’s confused about her sexuality and goes fulfilling her desires with an artist. They start a passionate relationship, while dealing with their parents, their bohemian and intellectual friends, and Adele’s schoolmates. And here is where I don’t get it. The film is beautifully made, even the repetitive lines are bearable, I honestly didn’t feel the time going by, because I was enthralled by Adele’s astonishing beauty and interested where she would go next, but the film is just a coherent coming-of-age story, very honest, but nothing major, besides the explicit hot scenes. Some characters and situations tend to look fake although there’s an admirable singular realism when the camera follows Adele on her way to school, dining with her family, studying by the window, or masturbating in bed. The film will probably call attention during this Award season, and I wonder if the Academy will surrender to its ‘freedom’. Some are calling her performance a contender. She’s fantastic, but in some points is obvious she’s trying hard to make tears roll during her increasingly crisis. It’s a good film, provocative and explosive, but discounting the explicit sex scenes, it’s an experience already seen before, that should be discovered as a modern young tale, but shouldn’t cause a sensation.
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