There is an intensity and focus to every scene. The senior partner, a university student and artist, acts as a sort of mentor to Adèle and a passionate romance eventually develops. Then she happens upon an older gay woman with blue hair named Emma (Lea Seydoux). (All that talk of Adèle reminds us ever so slightly of Isabelle Adjani’s obsessed lover in Truffaut’s The Story of Adèle H.)Īdèle’s first romance is with a boy. In contrast, Blue exhibits a gimlet-eyed focus from its opening sequence.ĭerived from a graphic novel by Julie Maroh, the picture follows Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos), a young woman from Lille, as she moves from school to life as a teacher. Though it has its admirers, Couscous, his previous lurch into naturalism, never quite justified its long occupation of the cinema screen.

Only a person of stone could emerge unmoved.īlue Is the Warmest Colour marks a significant leap forward for Kechiche. But the sheer emotional oomph of the piece blasts most of those objections into the wings. Reports of Kechiche’s pushy behaviour on set do not fill us with warmth. The sheer length of the sex scenes occasionally tips those sequences towards the ludicrous. It’s a worry that two straight actors have been asked to pull on the metaphorical blackface as the lesbian leads. That’s not to suggest that this year’s winner of the Cannes Palme d’Or is without its issues. Once you’ve hacked your way through the jungle of controversy, you will, in Abdellatif Kechiche’s already-notorious, rough-edged romance, encounter a small (though far from short) masterpiece.

Emma blue is the warmest colour