BY: Shraddha Kumar
Blue is the Warmest Colour (La vie d’Adèle) is a 2013 French-language film that follows the journey of a teenage girl, Adèle Exarchopoulos, who is still in high school and is trying to come to terms with her sexuality. After a failed relationship with a boy, she soon finds herself fixated upon a blue-haired art undergraduate named Emma whom she meets in a gay bar. From the moment they meet,the chemistry is apparent between Adèle and Emma, and they soon start dating despite thier different backgrounds (Adèle has conservative, working-class parents to whom Emma is introduced to as a philosophy tutor, while Emma’s parents are liberal and welcoming). While initally their passion seemingly rises above everything else , over time their differing ambitions and Adèle’s insecurities drive an unbridgeable rift between the two.
This movie isn’t like any other queer or romance film you’ve ever seen before. Like the movie’s protagonist, it defies labels and instead chooses to be about the painfully human experiences of love and loss. It reminds us that not everyone gets a happy ending in life and that sometimes, there is nothing that we can do except try to make the best out of a bad situation.
Yet regardless of everything that happens, the movie reminds us that no matter what the outcome of a relationship, the memories and the connection that you build during it last forever. Emma’s final parting words to Adèle, ‘I have infinite tenderness for you. I always will. My whole life’, beautifully echoes this sentiment.
Watching Blue is the Warmest Colour is an experience that words can never do full justice to. Léa Sedoux and Adèle Excharopoulos both deliver moving performances, and the characters themselves are so well developed that you sometimes feel more like an uncomfortably intrusive spectator in a relationship rather than the viewer of a movie. All in all, this beautiful movie is a treasure that holds a special place both in queer and mainstream cinema.
Tabeer 