Blue is the Warmest Color
Director: Abdellatif Kechiche
Writers: Abdellatif Kechiche and Ghalia Lacroix. Based on the book Le Bleu est une couleur chaude by Julie Maroh.
Cast: Adèle Exarchopoulos, Léa Seydoux, Salim Kechiouche, Aurélien Recoing, Catherine Salée, Benjamin Siksou, Anne Loiret, Benoît Pilot
Overview
A talky French drama about two women falling in and out of love, Blue is the Warmest Color shows the evolution of a complex and multifaceted relationship. While glacially paced, this is a movie that offers plenty of rewards for viewers with the patience to read the Bible from the beginning all the way to Job. Seriously, the lists in Genesis of who begat who take forever to get through and anyone who can make it through those parts will have no trouble with this film.
Synopsis
Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos) is a typical, if rather introverted, French teenager. When Adèle first has sex with her boyfriend, she finds the experience unsatisfying. At a lesbian bar, she meets Emma (Léa Seydoux) and the two begin a passionate relationship. Eventually the two move in together with Adèle taking up a career as a teacher, while Emma pursues work as a fine painter. However, their domestic relationship leads to a routine that leaves Adèle lonely and Emma unsatisfied. When Adèle has an affair with one of her coworkers, Emma kicks her out. More time passes and Adèle has trouble moving on. When she receives an invitation to an art show featuring Emmas' paintings, she goes and manages to find closure to this chapter in her life.
The Queering
Blue is the Warmest Color is filmed with explicit scenes that are designed more to develop and advance the characters than they are to titillate or arouse. Of course, as a gay man, I cannot say I can really judge how titillating they actually are. Of course, this being a character focused piece this a slow moving meditation on the nature of love and relationships. There is little effort to focus on queer or lesbian issues specifically. Adèle goes through a period where she is clearly questioning her sexuality and has to face homophobia from friends when the suspect that she is dating a woman, but this becomes a non-issue once she moves in with Emma. Futhermore, the characters never come out to anyone that the audience is made aware of. As it is, outside of a scene where Adèle marches in an anti-austerity march, the film is largely apolitical.
This doesn't stop the film from raising questions about depictions of female sexuality and desire. Given that the director is a man, the male gaze is of course utilized but as far as I could tell, never subverted nor averted. However, Director Kechiche does raise questions about it. In one scene, a character comments on how men are the ones who most often depict female sexuality in spite of the fact that men cannot know what women really experience when it comes to sex. It's a philosophical question and one reflective of Platos' views of art in general. Plato, as it were, had a pet peeves was that since our world was merely a copy of his beloved Forms, then the highest thing art could aspire towards was being a second hand imitation of a copy of a copy of the "original" forms.
It makes sense then, that Kechiche films Blue is the Warmest Color in a cinema vérité style with many hand held camera shots, no voiceover, and a minimal soundtrack. Blue is the Warmest Color tries to be real, even while it acknowledges in sometimes subtle ways that it's not. Furthermore, all we ever see of Emmas' drawings or paintings of Adèle are brief glimpses, yet there implications that the Kechiche is trying to frame Adèle through the same lens that Emma views her in. That is just as Emma paints Adèle on canvas, so too does Kechiche attempt to present Adèle through the eye of the camera.
When people refer to the "male gaze", they invariably mean the "straight male gaze". But this raises the question: Is there a difference between the straight male gaze and the lesbian gaze and if so, what is it? Furthermore, can a difference between the two gazes be established at all without resorting to gender essentialism?
At the end of the day, it is Kechiches' willingness to address this issue that sets Blue is the Warmest Color apart. At nearly 3 hours, with little action, combined with the slowest of plots, it would seem that this would be a drag to sit through. It is a testament to those involved that Blue is the Warmest Color manages to be engaging from start to finish.
Recommendation
For fans of dialog heavy films that focus on characters over action or plot, this would be worth crossing the most depressingly warm blue ocean in existence in order to see.
The Rating
3 out of 4 stars.
Trailer
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June 1, 2014
Queer Review: The Matador (2005)
The Matador
Director: Richard Shepard
Writer: Richard Shepard
Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear, Hope Davis, Philip Baker Hall, Israel Tellez
Overview
A fun romantic comedy between about two men falling in love, one of whom happens to be a hitman who is finds his ability to kill failing him at critical times. Also, there are random shots of a matador inserted for no apparent reason other than to justify the title.
Synopsis
Aging hitman Julian Noble (Pierce Brosnan) is starting to lose his nerve when it comes to doing his job. He hides it well enough, but there are times, such as when he sashes through a hotel lobby wearing nothing but a tight pair of speedos, when it becomes painfully clear that he is losing his mind. Then he meets Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear) and the two have a brief fling before Julian is forced back into doing his job. When Julian fails to kill a critical target, his life is put in danger from his employeers and thus he turns to Danny and his wife Bean (Hope Davis), hoping that the sparks the two shared for each other will be enough to get him out his predicament.
The Queering
Most of the humor in The Matador is low key but generally effective. Brosnan and Kinnear display a fair amount of chemistry with each other as their characters flirt with each other in a hotel bar and bond over drinks. This is their meet cute scene. Eventually the two go on a date where Julian shows Danny the best method for killing a person. Also, it happens to be at a bullfighting tournament where we get the aforementioned shots of a matador and bull fighting. Before the two had met, Julian had been trying to deal with his issues by having empty sex with woman. It's only when he meets Danny that Julian opens up at all and is able to find any meaning to his life.
The first half of the film is better than the second, which is where the pacing starts to drag. In fact, I started to wonder if the project had originally been conceived of as a stage play, given the way the latter scenes focus increasingly on dialog and character over plot. There's a lengthy sequence which is set entirely in Danny and Beans' house and has the feel of a stage production due to the way it focuses entirely on dialog and character revelations, while the plot comes to a virtual standstill. The climax is equally low key and a few plot twists simply do not work in the context of the film due to them being poorly set up.
When The Matador was first released, it received favorable reviews but failed to find an audience. This is something of a shame although the film lacks the panache to go in for the killing blow that might have elevated it to a higher level. As it is, this is an enjoyable diversion but failed to become a classic for obvious reasons.
Recommendation
It would definitely be worth getting in a fight with a bull with only a flimsy cloth as your weapon in order to see The Matador.
The Rating
3 out of 4 stars.
Trailer
Want to find a review of a particular work? Check out the Title Index, the archive of all reviews posted listed alphabetically.
Director: Richard Shepard
Writer: Richard Shepard
Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear, Hope Davis, Philip Baker Hall, Israel Tellez
Overview
A fun romantic comedy between about two men falling in love, one of whom happens to be a hitman who is finds his ability to kill failing him at critical times. Also, there are random shots of a matador inserted for no apparent reason other than to justify the title.
Synopsis
Aging hitman Julian Noble (Pierce Brosnan) is starting to lose his nerve when it comes to doing his job. He hides it well enough, but there are times, such as when he sashes through a hotel lobby wearing nothing but a tight pair of speedos, when it becomes painfully clear that he is losing his mind. Then he meets Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear) and the two have a brief fling before Julian is forced back into doing his job. When Julian fails to kill a critical target, his life is put in danger from his employeers and thus he turns to Danny and his wife Bean (Hope Davis), hoping that the sparks the two shared for each other will be enough to get him out his predicament.
The Queering
Most of the humor in The Matador is low key but generally effective. Brosnan and Kinnear display a fair amount of chemistry with each other as their characters flirt with each other in a hotel bar and bond over drinks. This is their meet cute scene. Eventually the two go on a date where Julian shows Danny the best method for killing a person. Also, it happens to be at a bullfighting tournament where we get the aforementioned shots of a matador and bull fighting. Before the two had met, Julian had been trying to deal with his issues by having empty sex with woman. It's only when he meets Danny that Julian opens up at all and is able to find any meaning to his life.
The first half of the film is better than the second, which is where the pacing starts to drag. In fact, I started to wonder if the project had originally been conceived of as a stage play, given the way the latter scenes focus increasingly on dialog and character over plot. There's a lengthy sequence which is set entirely in Danny and Beans' house and has the feel of a stage production due to the way it focuses entirely on dialog and character revelations, while the plot comes to a virtual standstill. The climax is equally low key and a few plot twists simply do not work in the context of the film due to them being poorly set up.
When The Matador was first released, it received favorable reviews but failed to find an audience. This is something of a shame although the film lacks the panache to go in for the killing blow that might have elevated it to a higher level. As it is, this is an enjoyable diversion but failed to become a classic for obvious reasons.
Recommendation
It would definitely be worth getting in a fight with a bull with only a flimsy cloth as your weapon in order to see The Matador.
The Rating
3 out of 4 stars.
Trailer
Want to find a review of a particular work? Check out the Title Index, the archive of all reviews posted listed alphabetically.
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