Spoiler Alert
Though Bitch Flicks had a recent guest post by Ren Jender on the French lesbian film Blue is the Warmest Color called “The Sex Scenes are Shit, The Director’s an Asshole, but You Should Still See ‘Blue is the Warmest Color,'” I couldn’t help but weigh in on this graphic novel-turned-movie. Jender made a lot of really great points, namely that despite the director’s obvious prurience when it comes to lesbian sexuality, it’s still so important that we’re seeing a critically acclaimed three-hour film depicting the love affair between two women. I also think it’s fantastic that a comic book adaptation is receiving such praise. Not only that, but the graphic novel was written and drawn by a woman, Julie Maroh. However, because I really admire the graphic novel source material (…even though it is a bit overwrought…I mean, hey, what love story isn’t?), I feel compelled to critique the film for the myriad changes that were actively made from comic to screenplay, which remove much of the drama and complexity from the storyline.
Because they’re everyone’s pet topic, let’s go ahead and start with the sex scenes. Few will argue that the film’s sex scenes weren’t overly long and graphic. There were something like three repetitive sex scenes where nothing is happening to further the plotline or our understanding of the characters’ relationships, which makes the additional scenes seem gratuitous.
Check out this video of lesbians watching Blue is the Warmest Color sex scenes and evaluating them:
[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIjJ_VtU9PA”]
Though I personally thought the scenes were kind of icky and prurient and shot from an exploitative male gaze, they were also impersonal. There was a lack of intimacy between the two women that was obvious in that they rarely kiss, they don’t make eye contact, and they’re usually not facing one another. This dramatically contrasts from the sex scenes depicted in the graphic novel. Maroh’s sex scenes, like in the movie, are also quite graphic. The difference is that they’re not just about pleasure; they’re about connection, intimacy, and love.
In case you’re not familiar with French, Clementine (Adele in the film) is saying, “I love you,” to Emma during sex. There’s also a bit of insecurity and talking/checking-in to alleviate those lingering fears. Not only that, but there’s a whole lot of kissing. As a queer woman, I found the graphic novel’s sex scenes to be far more sensual and sexy than the sort of rutting that the film depicts.
The sex of the film version of Blue is the Warmest Color translates into our understanding of their relationship, which didn’t strike me as particularly loving either. We see Adele doing a lot of work to prepare for a party, and Emma being ungrateful for that by critiquing Adele for her lack of creativity. The two of them also share a mutual fear of the other’s infidelity. The break-up scene with Emma hurling slurs at Adele like “little slut” and “little whore” after slapping her is not in the graphic novel either. That hatred and that domestic violence coupled with their loveless sex left me to believe that the director could not fathom two women’s love for one another. He could understand their lust, but not their love. Their reunion scene in the cafe (another movie write-in) cements my theory because it indicates that sex was the primary tether holding them together. Though Emma confesses she doesn’t love Adele anymore, their near public-sex-act shows that their sexual desire is still intact.
Very little of the complexity of Clementine/Adele’s sexuality along with its struggles remain in the film. We see the brutality of her homophobic friends ostracizing her on suspicion of her gayness, but we don’t see her parents finding out she’s gay and kicking her out of her house and disowning her. We don’t see how Emma never really believed that Adele was queer and initially refused to break up with her girlfriend, Sabine, fearing that Adele would wake up one day and suddenly want to be with a man, which made Adele’s infidelity that much more painful. We don’t see how Adele repeatedly freezes Emma out early on in their relationship, asserting her immaturity, individuality, and ability to make choices. We don’t see how Adele feels she must constantly prove her sexuality to Emma. We don’t see that Adele actually hated gay pride events and refused to go to them. We don’t see that she hid her sexuality from her friends/colleagues and became something of a reclusive introvert, which caused strife with her extroverted partner. We don’t see the way Adele battles crushing anxiety and depression due to her slippery identity and relationship troubles. We don’t see how it drives her to drug use. We don’t see how this kills her.
Why did the film cut these moments of tension? Why did it de-complicate its heroine’s sexuality and her personality, for that matter? These details, these events are what make these cardboard characters into people. These questions, struggles, and anxieties are hallmarks of queer sexuality, of queer life. To remove them is to dismiss the difficulties endemic to coming out and being gay in our world. If you also take away the joy and love inherent in those relationships, as the film Blue is the Warmest Color does, what are you left with?
I’m not saying all lesbian sex is romantic or that all lesbian relationships are loving, but I’m left wondering what I was watching for three hours? It mostly seemed like a lot of mouth-breathing, sleeping, eating, and fucking. Is that what the film wants us to believe lesbian relationships are all about? The party scene even mouths the director’s inability to understand queer female sexuality with its ignorant conversations about what women do in bed and why women are drawn to each other. I can’t help but feel that there was so much beauty, depth, and complexity to the relationship in the comic that is inexplicably missing from the film. I can’t help but feel the movie gives us scraps and that the queer community is so desperate for a reflection of itself, that we hungrily accept those scraps.
I understand people liking this film, especially queer women. I might’ve liked it, too, if I hadn’t read the graphic novel first. If you liked this movie, do yourself a favor and go to your local comic book store. Pick up a copy of Julie Maroh’s beautifully illustrated graphic novel Blue is the Warmest Color. If you don’t have a comic book shop, I beg you to buy it online. See what you’re missing. See what the film is missing.
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Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.
sad that you had to quote Dargis’ lame “male gaze” fuckery to bash the movie.What is a “male gaze” and what is a “Female gaze” ? Maroh was pissed cuz SHE sold the rights of her book to Kechiche who turned it into this movie and for anyone who speaks French it has always been clear he wasn’t gonna copy/paste Maroh’s exact words in the movie.Maroh was doubly pissed cuz Kechiche didn’t invite her onset.Might explain the bitterness yet she complimented the movie.
As far as those sex scenes Maroh was mad cuz there were no real lesbians to coach the girls on what “real” lesbian sex is that. Had that happened it would have been a porn.
the actresses are straight and wore fake vaginas.
Lesbians have trouble getting movies done right about them seen onscreen yet they lose their shit over fake ass lesbian “sex” in a movie. That video of these lesbians bashing the movie is fucking insulting as well.
I don’t need a group of women speaking for ALL lesbians as if people can’t fucking speak for themselves
We wonder why lesbians movies aren’t getting funded and produced;pathetic shit like this is one of the many reasons why.
Actually, Laura Mulvey is typically credited with coining the term “male” gaze.
Also, as you say, though Julie Maroh had her critiques of the film, she says she didn’t find it to be a “betrayal.”
If you’ll note, I didn’t raise the issue of the actresses’ sexuality. My questions, as I outlined in my review, stemmed from the conflict, drama, and emotional depth that the film didn’t translate from the graphic novel. I felt I had to delve into why those aspects (the most appealing parts of the storyline) were removed.
your a fucking dumbass.
that “sex scene” was an imagination of a male’s idea of what lesbian sex would be, but clearly Kechiche wasn’t informed on what real lesbian sex would be like. it was basically porn, i’ve seen good indie movies where heterosex wasn’t like that. where was the intimacy? hardly any lesbians ever fucking do scissorings.
you know why lesbians are pissed off at that scene? because the fact that Kechiche didn’t know anything of lesbian sex, he made that scene look as though those girls were fucking sex objects for the male’s viewer’s pleasure.
and shits like you fucking expect us to accept that?
if i saw you, i’d smack you in the face.
I’ve been debating buying the comic but as much as I’d like to read the source material, the sub-par illustration is such a turn off. In the world of graphic novels, there are some astonishing and amazing works of illustration. I don’t want to spend my money on something that is so visually lackluster (and judging by my Amazon viewing, I agree, very overwrought).
Sweety, you missed the whole movie.
This movie´s plot developes under a very critical and intelligent discussion about social class, culture, art, elitism, and actually some pretty basic symbolism. If you can`t find the string that pulls the whole thing together you may want check again cause is there except no one it´s going to spoon feed you the location. And yes, every scene serves a purpose, actually I don´t think I`ve ever seen a movie where sex scenes actually served a very good purpose and Blue does, specially the 3rd, 4th and 5th scenes, the class commentary about the diferences in the way the have sex in their homes it´s something I have never seen in cinema before.
Thank you for this commentary. I also read the graphic novel first and had looked forward to the film. It has many strong points — I find the director/screenwriter’s addition of the class differences between Emma and Adele to be particularly effective — but it does eliminate Adele/Clementine’s personality almost entirely, and changes Emma’s. In the film, Emma’s clearly a player, and a bit of an arrogant snob as well. Maroh’s Emma is nothing like this. I see the film as a different interpretation of the book, but certainly not an accurate recreation of it. Kechiche has added (and subtracted) too much; for example, (SPOILER ALERT), Clementine’s internalized homophobia, sorrow, and terror eventually destroy her; she tells us, “Since my father threw me out of his house and told me I was no longer his daughter, I have never been at peace.” That realization haunts her so much she turns to the drug addiction that will kill her. Kechiche has taken a sensitive portrayal of first love and the destructive force of homophobia and re-presented it as a tired “first love/sexual awakening” narrative, including sex scenes that are ridiculous in their exploitative views of the female body, particularly Exarchopolous’ body. Is the film worth seeing? Yes — the performances by Exarchopolous and Seydoux are amazing, and they convey very well the intensity of first love, and the pain of watching that relationship implode. In this way, it appeals to memory and even a bit of nostalgia for everyone who’s ever been through the divine hell of first love, but it’s certainly not the condemnation of homophobia and its long-term effects that Maroh so expertly represents in her novel.
As a heterosexual male I see things under another light. I haven’t read the graphic novel before (or even heard about it until after seeing the movie), but I read all the coments to find out how much the story was changed. Let me tell you my reaction: when the film started I thought ‘it’s a nicely done teen lesbian movie’, which focused on growing up and how difficult it is to get out of the closet, as the film progressed and ended my mind was changed. I think now of the film as a realistic and beautiful developing of a relationship. The lesbian environment was gone, all what is was left were the feelings. It moved from something specific to universal content.
I agree that the story could have lost something in the way from the graphic novel to the film, but what is also real is that you can not squeeze all in a movie.
So, what I’m saying is that maybe much of the real lesbian content was left out but for straight people who know little about that world, is not shown as a ‘different world’ but as relationship you can relate to and that I think is possitive.
About the sex scenes, I wasn’t that much surprised knowing french cinema, but I thought that maybe they took too long. For lesbians, maybe the scenes seems unreal, for me it was like ‘they’re showing two women loving each other and they’re not ashamed of that’. It didn’t feel like men’s porn. I believe that 70% of sex scenes in all movies between a man and a woman feel fake, so I find it hard to criticise the director for not doing something perfect and accurate because in the end what i’m left with is not the sex scene but a great real story of love between to people.