Today's Mini-Review: La Vie d'Adèle

 

La Vie d'Adèle: ****/*****, or 8/10

Abdellatif Kechiche's exploration of love, released in some territories under the title Blue is the Warmest Color, packs quite a powerful punch in terms of both emotional and controversial contents. This microcosmic three-hour epic follows the young Adèle (relative newcomer Adèle Exarchopoulos) during the evolution of her first love and sexual awakening, divided into two distinct chapters. In the first, the teenage girl is struggling with societal expectations and personal preferences. Though she physically experiments with boys, she quickly grows confused and disappointed as it doesn't seem to be able to stimulate her as she has been brought up to believe it should. A circumstantial kiss with a girl leads her to suspect she is looking for love in all the wrong places, a hypothesis soon tested out in a gay bar. When she meets the free-spirited Emma (Léa Seydoux), who has a habit of dyeing her hair blue, the two connect almost instantly, which leads them to start the road down a genuine romantic relationship, which includes many a scene of passionate same-sex intercourse. In the second chapter, we find the pair some years down the road, after Adèle has graduated and is aspiring to become a elementary school teacher, while Emma is starting to come into her own as an artist. Despite their love continuing to flourish, the element of novelty has worn of and Adèle considers she might have jumped to conclusions about her sexual nature as she finds herself interested in male partners after all, which causes her to be unfaithful to Emma and attempting to lie about it afterwards to no avail. Emma uncovers her infedelity and in a fit of rage kicks her out of the house. Adèle must come to terms with the sad fact she has lost her first love due to her own faux pas, but it will take her quite some time to recover from this emotional trauma.

La Vie d'Adèle must surely have been an extraordinary ordeal for the two young actresses carrying the piece in terms of filming. Kechiche tells Adèle's story relying on close-ups for most of the film, their every facial nuance laid bare, which makes us feel like we're right on top of them continuously. Correspondingly, the two women also spend a lot of time on top of each other, in a number of quite explicit lesbian sex scenes that leave next to nothing to the imagination, covering the entire range of physical positions you can think of where two women are involved. Though this apparent excess of groping, fingering and tribbing appears titillating at first, these scenes carry on for far longer than feels comfortable for the audience. However, they are yet another natural part of the everyday love life of these girls in the director's mind and as such ought not be censored for the sake of the audience's own inhibitions, nor are they meant to arouse. Accusations of blatant pornography cannot be wholly dismissed, but clearly are not Kechiche's sole intentions, whatever the levels of controversy and thus publicity these scenes might spark. In that regard, he also holds little interest in the homosexual nature of the mutual love he examines. Though at first the concept of a girl falling in love with a girl and the views thereof in society, i.e., Adèle's high school and home environment, relate the usual notions of otherness and awkwardness, the story quickly evolves to the point where that fact simply matters not. Though the two women don't openly flaunt their love for each other at every turn, the gay side of their relation is quite apparent yet never the subject of open criticism: these are just two people in love, it's as simple as that for Kechiche. Whether it is intended as such or not, it's quite a statement to make in contemporary France, where homosexuality is still a matter of heated debate and even violent confrontations. Kechiche doesn't seem to care about current day politics. Realism, and realism only, is key, as he illustrates by making effective use of improvisation throughout the film, the script only used sparingly to help the actresses establish their own natural rhythm of conversing and interacting, instead of merely adhering to the lines written down. It's a monumental task for any actor/actress, no matter how experienced, but both of them succeed to completely convincingly results: Exarchopoulos in particular is to be applauded for the achievement of portraying the inexperienced Adèle to such compelling success, considering her own lack of experience in terms of acting. La Vie d'Adèle deconstructs the theme of love entirely, from its inception to its brutal ending, its joys and its horrors exposed, fully justifying its running time of 187 minutes despite the risk it carries of discouraging the audience. Kechiche is not afraid to end the movie on a note of ambiguity in regard to Adèle's own understanding and weathering of the concept, as she is confronted by the mark it has left on her. Sometimes love is a blessing, but an equal amount of time it's a curse, the director remarks.