I really liked Blue is the Warmest Color, and there's a lot I have to say on it. It's been about a week since I saw it, but I keep thinking about it. It's starkly oppressive all the way through, even the moments of happiness and tranquility are underscored by this sense of unease, quiet and tender moments that threaten ill-outcomes with every scene change. For as much as it's described as a movie about the lesbian experience, it's also a fairly all-encompassing commentary on relationships, though as far as I'm aware, this does divorce it somewhat from the source material.
I really, really enjoy the use of food as metaphor. Whenever food is used, its to the ends of representing anything from class, to sexuality, lust, taste, even just individual perception with how it mirrors characters' perspectives. There's something uncomfortable about how characters eat, too, with close-up shots, unwiped mouths, chewing. It's like an experience in excess, framing food not as sustenance alone, but instead an indulgence, and that ties into the sexual themes too. There's something equally uncomfortable about Adele's first sexual relationship with Thomas, for his part, it's youthful lust very much within his conception of self, for Adele, the opposite, it's her testing ground, and she finds it doesn't work. Thomas enjoys it for his own sake, his indulgence is one-sided. Despite there being explicitly more prolonged sexual contact between Adele and Emma, and noting too that it is predicated on a burning lust for lust's sake (as we see from later on in the film when interpersonal cracks begin to show outside of physical intimacy, where the flame is still very much alive), it's evidently reciprocal, in-part because Adele is coming to terms with her bisexuality and tastes, thus finding herself more at ease with Emma, but also because the spark that seems to exist between them comes from Adele's excitement of self-discovery blinding her to the possible fractures that may come between them. She is engorging herself just as much on Emma as Thomas did to her, as if Emma were food, it's just an issue of degrees, obfuscated by that reciprocation. It's a flurry of emotional and sexual needs being met for both parties, but it can be blinding.
I really enjoy Thomas' first interactions with Adele too, where even though their tastes don't match up, Thomas is willing to discuss Adele's interests, he seems to be genuinely trying to bridge that gap in understanding, meeting her on her own terms, and she does likewise, though not to the same extent, being more passive (you see this too in how she discusses the arts with Emma later). It's funny, in contrast Emma is, not condescending, but, somewhat dismissive of Adele's perspectives on philosophy in their first conversation. Emma is a storied individual, older, more experienced, she knows what she believes; conviction. Adele is, again, the passive party. This is the beginning of the fracture that constitutes the second half of the movie, and it's suprising how noticeable it is in retrospect. Emma is motivated, she doesn't need Adele. Adele absolutely needs an Emma.
One of the things I wondered was whether or not Emma cheated on Adele first with Lise, given how they end up together later, but I think it's interesting that this is left up to viewer interpretation and never addressed by the plot itself. Something the movie does great is putting you inside Adele's mind, and you could easily see how her perspective on the party conversation comes from insecurity, so it could easily be the case that there was no infidelity on Emma's part, the break-up scene seems to infer that Adele can't even bring up Lise as a justification for her actions, and that makes it all the sadder. She acted on something she feels like she can't express. This is not to imply Emma is blameless, however. The facture is a neutral element, exacerbated by both parties in how they acted, and I suppose that's the tragedy.
Going back to the party scene, I feel like the commentary on sex one of the characters espouses is maybe dwelled on a bit too harshly by critics. When I heard the lines come out of the guy's mouth, I did kind of smile and roll my eyes, because it did seem to be a heteronormative, cis guy perspective on female sexuality, but I also feel it was authentic TO that character. If people want to critique the director for shoehorning in his own perspective on this, all I can say is that yes, men can be bigoted and closeminded, and the fact this character expresses this view doesn't devalue the artistic merit therein. If anything it enhances it somewhat, it at least gives me something to talk about. I would find it more jarring if the by-committee 'true' opinion of female orgasm left the character's mouth as if he was the arbiter of such a clarification. You see too in the scene the multiple reactions to such a statement, it's almost as if the movie is begging you to introspect on this point to see if you agree or not; hardly a statement of fact. I think a lot of scenes in this movie are drafted to give this impression, actually. The two family dinners with Adele and Emma are very similar; you see the parents expressing their takes, class dynamics fall into place (the mention of Emma merely being a 'friend' made everything click for me at once, for instance), individual perspectives are outlined. You can hardly call Adele's parents 'wrong', they're coming from their own flawed perspective, informed by their upbringings and biases. It is funny to me then, that we see these as intriguing sociological commentaries on how environment conditions an individual to be blind to certain ways of thinking, yet the moment it's a character speaking his mind on sexuality, it becomes THE point of critique.
If it does mirror the director, and I do think I should note that this is extremely likely, this is where the movie does have something of a shortcoming, but that is only in execution, not in design. The sex scenes are great, I like them a lot, especially the very first masturbation scene with Adele. It feels authentic and conveys exactly the amount of information you need from such a scene. Later sex scenes are a bit too long, but then, we forget this is the movie that has you follow minute long shots of Adele walking in silence down corridors, or dwelling upon her misery in empty classrooms. The critique in execution is merely the emphasis on those long, explicit camera shots that leave nothing to the imagination. I don't think the critique is baseless, you can point out that this is indeed lesbian sex as framed and shot by a cis male, but it's the diversity in perspectives ON this point that get me most about this. I'll never have the female experience, in sex or otherwise, but it's extremely amusing to check out criticisms lobbied at the movie's depiction of sex that are immediately responded to with a 'I'm a lesbian and this is the most authentic depiction I've ever seen.' Statistically, there may be more flak than not, but I do think that is likely a reflexive distaste, equal parts backlash against sex in media in general, equal parts well-meaning criticism on the validity of direction devoid of that experiential element. I can only say I enjoyed it for what it was. I think it's arguable you can't depict sex in the visual medium without engendering some critique on the point of 'depiction' because of how personal and diverse the experience fundamentally is, thus rendering the discussion somewhat moot outside of glaring inconsistencies, inconsistencies that I do not personally believe exist within this movie. The sexes express different priorities and focuses in sex, this much can be true, but if the focuses of the female experience are so antithetical to the explicit, visual depiction, all that tells me is that to depict sex at all in this manner is problematic, and on that point I can only disagree. It would strike me as odd to see explicit, full-penetrative male-on-male sex and have it be considered 'fine', but not the reverse, merely due to the sexes response to the mechanical depiction of those acts. I digress.
I don't have much to say on the break up scene, it was honestly not as hard to watch as comparatively innocuous scenes, but it did its job. I think the ending is solid as a whole, though. It left me feeling as aimless as Adele. I think the gallery scene is far more impactful than the reconciliation in the Cafe. Emma has her priorities, Adele is almost as ignored as she ever was in the low moments of their relationship, because Emma is already far down the line. She's been through this before, she has her artistic focuses. Adele has none of that, she's left without an anchor, and so all she can do is leave and start from the ground up. I think that's the core message here, their ambitions weren't matched, it just wasn't going to work, all things considered, even if 'all things' were mostly positive, again, that's the tragedy. As a whole it's gotta' be up there as one of the more interesting movies I've seen.