Both girls are cautious, looking to an uncertain future, while at the same time overtaken by an all-consuming passion over which they have no control in which they can only live in the moment. It’s this taking the safe option that makes their relationship doomed and exposes the paradox at the heart of their relationship. Emma fears not being able to make it as a painter or graphic artist, while Adèle wants to become a nursery and grade school teacher as it’s a safe job.

It’s not just a portrait of Adèle through her relationship with Emma, but of two young girls in a world where there may not be room for them. The original French title says what you need to know about the point of view of Kechiche’s film, this is very much Adèle’s life. They strike up a friendship, the friendship turns intimate, and they become lovers. Emma is a fine arts student at university with a passion for Sartre. There she meets Emma, a young woman with blue hair she walked past in the street one day. She’s taken by her friend Valentin to a gay club for a drink, but then wanders off down the road to a lesbian bar.

The sex is okay, but not enough for Adèle.

He’s a science student, she’s a French literature geek their incompatibility clear for all to see. Were they not paying attention?Īdèle is a seventeen year old girl, part of a typically know-it-all clique of girls who have to know everything about each other, and who is being paid attention by a boy for the first time. Some accused it of being self-indulgent, in both length and its explicitness. P Brahim Chioua, Vincent Maraval, Abdellatif Kechiche d Abdellatif Kechiche w Abdellatif Kechiche, Ghalia Lacroix comic book Julie Maroh ph Sofian el Fani ed Sophie Brunet, Camille Toubkis, Albertine Lastera, Jean-Marie LengelleĪdèle Exarchopoulos (Adèle), Lea Seydoux (Emma), Salim Kechiouche (Samir), Aurélien Recoing (Adèle’s father), Catherine Salée (Adèle’s mother), Sandor Funtek (Valentin), Benjamin Siksou (Antoine),īeing as the title of the comic book on which Abdellatif Kechiche’s film is based, and indeed its English title, is a paradox, it’s perhaps appropriate that Blue is the Warmest Colour examines a paradox at the heart of its central protagonists.

Blue is the warmest colour (2013)