Lea Seydoux

Blue Is The Warmest Colour Review

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Preface

Now that university has ended for this year, I thought it was time to jump back to doing more retro reviews. It gives me chance to look back at a film that I might have seen a long time ago with some fresh eyes. And that’s what today’s choice is. I watched this film when it first came out in 2013 and I can’t really remember what my views on it were like. But let’s settle what they are now, one of the most controversial films of the 2010s, Blue Is The Warmest Colour.

Review

Blue Is The Warmest Colour stars Lea Seydoux, Adéle Exarchopoulos and Salim Kechiouche and is written and directed by Abdellatif Kechiche. Based on the graphic novel of the same name by Julie Maroh, the film follows teenager Adéle (Exarchopoulos) as she becomes enraptured with blue-haired tomboy Emma (Seydoux).

The script is one of the best things about the film. Written by director Kechiche, it manage to be both awkward and stilted but incredibly enthralling to listen to. The film is all about realism, it creates believable conversations and situations (sometimes to the point of being bland) rather than a glamorised Hollywood life. We see the duo move from home life to work/school and the trials of grappling with your sexuality at a time where trying to fit in is a vital part of life. The subtext is in the pauses and shy looks, adding to a much deeper storyline and character development.

This may be due to the two lead actors selling the hell out of it. Seydoux and Exarchopoulos have great chemistry first as friends then as lovers, both deservedly being nominated and winning several Best Actress and Supporting awards. But it’s Exarchopoulos who comes out on top between the two. As Adéle she moves through awkward teenage years to her young adult life and eventually into her job as a teacher, and fields a variety of different emotions. For a first time actress it’s an incredibly tall order, but Exarchopoulos manages to pull it off.

Another thing to note is the vast run time. Clocking in at just under three hours, Blue Is The Warmest Colour is a slog to get through, but somehow it’s incredibly watchable. Sure, some scenes feel redundant in the grand scheme of things when looking back, but the engaging script and Seydoux and Exarchopoulos being innately watchable means that you won’t want to turn it off half way through.

Okay, now for a talk about THAT scene.

Around half way through the film, Adéle and Emma are sat down in a park, eating a picnic. It’s a nice scene, full of the previously mentioned excellent dialogue and is symbolic for containing the character’s first kiss. Then BAM!, we are dropped into a seven minute long sex scene filled with everything and anything you could have imagined and blurring the boundaries between art and pornography. At the time, nothing this mainstream had done something so jaw-dropping and I bet a lot of tickets we sold on the idea of “OMG lesbians!” Looking back at it now, away from the controversy, it’s rather badly made. The lighting is off, there are many obtuse shots and after a while it just descends into sleaze. It’s a well known fact that both actresses rounded on the director after the scene, with Seydoux saying making it was “horrible”. Perhaps the very idea of putting sex on screen (especially when it pushes the boundaries of “real” and “fake”) is inherently voyeuristic.

For me, I found it rather cheap. The sudden jump from picnic to sex was jarring, and would have liked a bit more a build-up. Something along the lines of Sid and Gwen from The Pacific. We get the sex, but the build-up reveals a lot more about their characters and emotions on a subconscious level. Here we just jump from calm afternoon to rampant romping. And another thing, the scene is full of full body pans and decadent shots of the two actresses. There’s nothing wrong with titillation now and again, but this feels more like exhibitionism for its own sake rather than adding anything to the narrative. Add to it the director being male, it brings up the ideas of shooting the film with a hetero-majority audience in mind, using homosexuality for gratification rather than to explore meaningful relationships. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I think it could have been constructed better.

In the end, Blue Is The Warmest Colour is one of the top films to have come out in 2013 and will be remembered as being a defining moment in cinema history. It’s one of the best love stories in film that just happens to be between two women, something that really shouldn’t be a big deal anymore.

Score: 8/10 A sweet, touching and relatable romance for the ages.

SPECTRE Review

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I am a huge James Bond fan. I’ve been a fan ever since I can remember, even going out to Blockbuster every weekend (remember when that was a thing?) and renting out Bond films to watch. I was pumped for SPECTRE before the first teaser trailer was out, but after the triumphant 50th anniversary with Skyfall, can SPECTRE even hold a candle to the previous film’s success?

SPECTRE stars Daniel Craig, Lea Seydoux, Christoph Waltz, Dave Bautista and Monica Belluci and is directed by Sam Mendes. The story finds the super spy James Bond once again tracking down sinister characters and organisations, who this time have a much more personal connection with our hero.

Daniel Craig returns once again as James Bond. While he still is as suave and as funny as he was in Skyfall, in SPECTRE we get to see a lot more of his past, especially his parents and his heritage. While it was touched upon during the climax of Skyfall, here we see a lot more than just a tombstone and the family home. Christoph Waltz is superb as Franz Oberhauser, who for the sake of spoilers will not be mentioned in too much detail. One thing I did like about him though was his almost emotionless performance. While Raoul Silva was comically mad, Oberhauser doesn’t have any trademark quirks, which makes him stand out even more amongst his peers, he’s just pure evil. A small role for Dave Bautista as assassin Mr. Hinx is fun to watch, as well as his unique way that he kills his targets, likening him to series favourites Jaws or Oddjob. The standout role though is Lea Seydoux as Madeleine Swann, who seems to be the best parts of strength, sexiness and charm that haven’t been in the role of the Bond girl since Diana Rigg. Her interactions with Bond, while at first start out as the usual suspicious characters thrown together by chance, soon mellow out as both start to work together to find the truth about Oberhauser.

The film starts with Craig’s long awaited gun-barrel opening sequence. While thematically I understand why it wasn’t in the first two Craig era Bond films, it’s return made me extremely happy. After the gun-barrel is finished, director Sam Mendes pulls us into a four-and-a-half minute tracking shot through the Day of The Dead parade in Mexico City. It’s an breathtaking way to start any film, and with the scene gradually building up to an excellent, explosive action sequence, it feels like one of the best Bond pre-title sequences in a long time.

The action scenes, the meat of a James Bond film, are executed well through the film. While most of the big action set pieces are directed exceptionally, the smaller build ups are sometimes brushed over too quickly (we don’t need handheld/close cut camera nonsense back in this series after Quantum Of Solace). The beginning action scene in Mexico, along with a car chase between Bond and Hinx in Rome are my two favourite scenes, as well as a shootout that takes place in Oberhauser’s main base of operations.

There were a few problems I had with SPECTRE, as always. While the film has its fair share of funny lines, some of them just don’t fall the right way. Similar to The Man From U.N.C.L.E., the actors stand still for a second to let the audience laugh, but there were a couple of lines that delivered no laughs from the audience I was in. The other problem I had was that I felt there was no chemistry between Craig and Naomi Harris. Instead of the barely concealed flirting of past years between Bond and Moneypenny, here it just feels forced. But these are just small nitpicks in an amazing Bond film.

In conclusion, SPECTRE is a fantastic follow-up to Skyfall. While I was a bit worried it might have suffered from media overhype, as soon as the film started I knew Sam Mendes had once again made one of the best Bond films in the franchise.

Score: 10/10 A brilliant continuation for Craig’s Bond.