Blue Is the Warmest Colour
アデル、ブルーは熱い色
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A three-hour first love and its long sex scenes; in 2013 both actresses called the shoot horrible and said they would not work with Kechiche again.
Adèle is a quiet fifteen-year-old at a French high school. One day she passes an older woman with short blue hair and cannot forget her. She goes out with Thomas, a boy from school, feels nothing and ends it. A moment of closeness with her friend Béatrice, who then tells her to forget it, leaves her unsure of who she is. Her gay friend Valentin takes her to a gay bar; she wanders into a lesbian bar nearby, and when women there flirt with her, the blue-haired woman steps in and claims Adèle is her cousin. She is Emma, an art student. They become friends. When Emma turns up outside the school, Adèle's classmates turn on her, accusing her of being a lesbian.
Adèle and Emma fall in love and become lovers: an adult art student and a schoolgirl not yet eighteen, which the film tells as first love. Emma's artistic family welcomes Adèle, but Adèle tells her conservative, working-class parents that Emma is helping her with philosophy. Years later the two women live together. Adèle becomes a teacher of young children; Emma, trying to make her way as a painter, gives parties for people from the art world, where Adèle ends up talking with an aspiring actor, Samir, while the others talk about sex. Emma belittles Adèle's work and urges her to write; Adèle insists she is happy as she is. Emma comes home late from working with Lise, a pregnant artist friend. Lonely, Adèle sleeps with a male colleague, Antoine. Emma finds out and, furious, ends it.
Three years later they meet in a restaurant. Adèle is still in love. Emma lives with Lise and helps raise her daughter, though she admits she is not fulfilled. They kiss; Emma pulls away and tells Adèle she no longer loves her, but will always feel 'infinite tenderness' for her. They part in tears and apologies. At Emma's exhibition, Adèle sees on the wall a portrait of herself that Emma painted when they were together. She congratulates Emma, who is busy with Lise and her guests, and leaves. Samir runs after her but goes the wrong way, and Adèle walks off alone down the street.
Starring
Adèle Exarchopoulosas Adèle
A shy teenager when the story begins, later a teacher of young children, whose first great love shapes the years that follow.
Adèle’s story
Adèle is fifteen when she passes a woman with blue hair in the street and cannot forget her. A boyfriend, Thomas, leaves her cold; a friend who shares a moment of closeness with her takes it back. In a lesbian bar the blue-haired woman, Emma, claims her as a cousin, and when Emma comes to the school, her classmates turn on her. She and Emma become lovers while she is still at school: an adult and a girl not yet eighteen, which the film tells as first love. Years later she teaches young children and insists she is happy; lonely, she sleeps with a colleague, and Emma, furious, ends it. Three years on, still in love, she hears that Emma no longer loves her. At Emma's exhibition she finds her own portrait, congratulates her and walks away alone.
Léa Seydouxas Emma
A blue-haired art student, older than Adèle, who becomes a painter and whom Adèle loves long after it ends.
Emma’s story
Emma, a blue-haired art student, rescues Adèle from women flirting with her in a lesbian bar and talks about their difference in age. She waits outside the school and draws her. They become lovers while Adèle is still at school: an adult and a girl not yet eighteen, which the film tells as first love. Years later, living together and making her name as a painter, she belittles Adèle's work and spends evenings with Lise. Learning that Adèle has slept with a colleague, she ends it in fury. Three years on she is raising Lise's daughter with her and admits she is not fulfilled. They kiss, and she pulls back: she no longer loves her, but will always feel infinite tenderness for her. At her exhibition she is busy with Lise and her guests.
Salim Kechioucheas Samir
An aspiring actor Adèle meets at one of Emma's parties, who becomes her friend.
Mona Walravensas Lise
A pregnant artist in Emma's circle, with whom Emma spends more and more time and later makes a life.
Why it matters
Blue Is the Warmest Colour follows a first love from its start to long after its end, and it is as much about class as about desire. Adèle's family is conservative and working-class, Emma's lives for art, and the distance between those worlds is part of what ends the couple. Adapted from Jul Maroh's graphic novel, the film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2013, awarded for the first time to a director and both lead actresses. It also became a case study in how women's sex is filmed, and by whom. Both actresses later called the shoot horrible and said they would not work with Abdellatif Kechiche again; crew members complained of harassment; and Maroh criticised the long sex scenes, writing that what had been missing on set was lesbians. The question it leaves is double: what a first love takes from a person, and what a camera takes from the people in front of it.