Lost in all the hubbub about the sex scenes in this “controversial” Palme d’Or winner is any sense of the very real accomplishments of this movie, the most significant of which is to my mind to depict what’s it like for a young woman to discover herself and her body as a lesbian. It’s the first seriously sustained and sensitive examination of that process that I’ve ever seen. The obsessive use of close-ups is emblematic of that focus and moves beyond style into a form to contain and channel the audience’s attention. It’s far more disciplined and comprehensive than what we generally mean when we use the phrase Charakterstudie. I’m saying that as someone who has tried over the course of my life of movie-watching to see and evaluate every movie with gay characters that I’ve come across, good and bad.
For gay men, we call this process “coming out of the closet” and there are probably enough films in that genre for men to fill a small video store. For lesbians, not so much. That might be that the process for these women is different and that for lesbians it’s that much more different. I think that’s one question this film presents and explores, and I’ve never seen that before either.
Wenn wir den etwas altmodischen Ausdruck "Coming-out" so verstehen, dass ein Individuum sich gegen das Netz aus sozialem, politischem, rechtlichem, zwischen- und innerpersönlichem Druck, Einschränkungen, Grenzen und Definitionen wehrt, das gleichgeschlechtlichen Menschen vorschreibt, dass sie ihre Anziehungskraft nicht auf dieselbe Weise ausleben oder davon profitieren können wie andersgeschlechtliche Menschen, die dazu ermutigt und unter Druck gesetzt werden, dann ist dieser Film eine verdammt gute materialistische Studie darüber, wie es ist, unter diesem Scheiß zu leiden. Das habe ich auch noch nie gesehen.
Und es ist suffering as the film makes clear when Adele breaks down trying to explain what’s missing inside her after she’s had sex with a man ? sex that from the outside looks pretty satisfying, But then it would, wouldn’t it, particularly for someone who’s never suffered in any kind of closet.
So, Adele’s sex scenes with her older lover Emma are extended and detailed but they’re hardly superfluous or gratuitous. They’re powerful. They show sex not as an option, as an aside but as an essential. So of course they last a long time and they show the give and take of two powerfully attracted individuals.
While the beginning of the film demonstrates what’s it’s like to feel that power as an absence, once things heat up and consummate, we’re shown what it’s like to feel that power as a presence, as a force, as a Leben Kraft.
Wenn die Anziehungskraft erwidert und vervielfacht wird, ist das erstaunlich, aufregend, überwältigend und manchmal genauso verwirrend wie die Tatsache, dass man nicht weiß, wonach man eigentlich gesucht hat. Der Rest des Films erforscht die Grenzen dieser Macht innerhalb einer einzigen Beziehung, in der die Partner ungleiche Erfahrungen und sehr unterschiedliche Neigungen und Ziele haben.
Other than an undeniable and barely controlled passion for one another, Adele and Emma don’t have that much in common, so it’s not surprising that it ends, and that it’s Adele who steps out. But it’s just the beginning for her and I hope we get to see more as the film’s French title and the final frame suggests.
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[…] as intense as the sex scenes in Blue Is the Warmest Color, though they’re not monotonal at all, I had so much fun looking at the beautiful and […]