Yet, even as the controversies pile up and the critiques of the film’s depiction of lesbian sexuality continue to increase, Blue continues to achieve widespread critical acclaim. (Over at Vulture, Anna Silman has created a handy timeline of the feud.) Even the film’s controversies have controversies: after New York’s IFC Center issued a public statement saying that it would allow teens to see Blue despite the film’s NC-17 rating, they came under fire from the Parents Television Council for disregarding the rating. During a press tour during the Telluride film festival, the film’s stars described terrible treatment at the hands of Kechiche during the film’s overly long and grueling five-month shoot, which then led to two months of public sparring between the actresses and director.
There’s been no stopping the controversies since then. Conflict over the film increased when Julie Maroh, creator of the graphic novel on which the film is based, issue a scathing critique on her blog that the adaptation had robbed its female characters of agency and emotional depth, and equated the film to pornography. (If you’re curious, do a quick Google search for “blue is the warmest color fake vaginas” and you’ll see just how much these prosthetic vulvas have captured our collective cultural attention.)īlue generated a raft of rave reviews at Cannes, but a handful of critics including Magnolia Dargis took issue with Kechiche’s depiction of female sexuality. Revelations that the two actresses wore prosthetic vaginas over their real vaginas during the scene’s ten-day shoot have only served to create more buzz about it. Shot in a naturalistic style by writer/director Abdellatif Kechiche and featuring riveting performances by its two lead actresses, the three-hour film charts the women’s relationship over a decade, their coming-of-age, and how they experience the loss of first love after their break-up.Ī huge amount of the talk surrounding Blue was (and continues to be) focused on an explicit, ten-minute scene in which the two young actresses engage in simulated, unchoreographed sex. Blue centers on the sexual awakening of Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos), a high school student, and her love affair with Emma (Lea Seydoux), an older, self-assured art student. By the time it won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, the French film Blue is the Warmest Color was well on its way to being one of the most highly praised-and most controversial-films of the year.