Criterion Collection: Blue Is the Warmest Color [Blu-ray] [2013] [US Import]

Enjoyable film

enjoyable enough movie, but the normal version should do in this case, as the Criterion version has no real extras or booklet. Prepare for a long, highly emotional tour de force.

Unfortunately I Didn't check this and was unable to play it on my dvd player so I'm afraid I couldn't rate it.

A good romance in American cinema is surprisingly difficult to find because most films of a romantic nature are either romantic comedies or romantic melodramas. They're a dime a dozen. But every once in a great while, you get a film that not only casts off the rom-com or melodrama usually associated with a romance story, but actually draws you in to the relationship in such a mesmerizing way with smart and absorbing storytelling and unbelievably brilliant performances is one of the rarest things imaginable. Director Abdellatif Kechiche's BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR is that film. Based on the wonderful award-winning graphic novel by Julie Maroh, BLUE is the story of Adele (Adele Excharopoulos), who begins the film as a naturally beautiful 15-year-old high school student who is just trying to do her best to stay uneaten in the feeding frenzy of adolescence. She keeps with her friends; she dates a cute boy; she pleases her working-class parents; she does well in school. But all that changes one day when she walks across a street, and sees Emma (Lea Seydoux), a haunting and beautiful older college student with dyed blue hair. They share a gaze, and in that instant, Adele is transfixed. She can barely move. She has really felt that thing we all look for: love at first sight. After losing her virginity with her boyfriend as an attempt to deny her "abnormal" feellings, she clearly doesn't feel the love and desire for him that she wants to, and breaks it off with him. Through a sequence of events, she has a chance meeting with Emma at a gay bar, and they become friends. The friendship clearly blossoms into something more, and their passions reach a fever pitch as they make love for the first time. They begin a relationship that is hidden from Adele's family and friends, but is open and accepted by Emma's. The relationship spans several years from Adele's student days and to her becoming a teacher of kindergarteners, and Emma changes from starving artist to toast of the town. But their relationship has problems. Despite the length of time they've spent together, they seem to be losing one another. Does love overcome, or is the passion of youth weighed down by the practicality of adulthood? When this film was presented with the Palme D'or, the highest award at the Cannes Film Festival, it wasn't just presented to director Kechiche, but also to leads Excharopoulos (this is her first major film role) and Seydoux (who some filmgoers might recognize from American films like MIDNIGHT IN PARIS or MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL) and the reasoning behind that is that they were all equal parts of what makes this film so remarkable. Kechiche directs the film using a lot of close-ups, allowing the audience very much in the lives and minds of the characters that inhabit the film. He also spares the audience any obvious artistic flourishes. There is barely any soundtrack to the film that isn't ambient sound from the settings within the film, so there are no music cues that instruct the audience how to feel. But Kechiche's skill behind the camera pales in comparison to what is possibly one of the most revelatory screen debuts I've ever seen, and that is from Excharopoulos, who so bares herself in both body and soul that it may be one of the singularly most immersive performances I've seen since Charlize Theron's amazing turn in MONSTER. Seydoux is as close to Excharopoulos's level as possible, which is an obvious challenge, but she plays the wiser, edgier and more experienced Emma close to perfection opposite Adele's wide-eyed, voracious youth, hungry for knowledge, experience and love. Both regretfully and triumphantly, the film's most talked-about sequence is a nearly 10-minute love scene between Adele and Emma which, while being graphic (but not unsimulated), is exciting, erotic, tender, a little clumsy, and beautiful. It gives the film its NC-17 rating, and I regret that it's the scene that most articles and reviews tend to bring up, but I also think it's a triumph because no one has talked this way about an NC-17 film since the film that effectively killed the rating being taken seriously, and that is Paul Verhoeven's SHOWGIRLS. Another thing that is brought up in regards to this film is the seemingly endless war of words between Kechiche and his two leads, but more than anything, that's just fodder for the gossip columns and not worth the time to remark on it any further. For fans of the graphic novel, there are certainly differences that will surprise and possibly disappoint them. A major plot point is dropped from this film in favor of something that seems more realistic, and that actually works in the film's favor, however, if how the film plays out is how it played out in the graphic novel, it would not have worked. It's best to think of them as two separate but equally amazing pieces of art that share a great deal, but one story works better in the graphic novel, and one works better in the film. To me, this is the most romantic film since Ang Lee's BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, and let me qualify that statement. Yes, they are both romance epics about same-sex love, but for whatever reason, I haven't seen another film between the masterpiece of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN in 2005 and this film in 2013 that reflects what it truly feels to be in love, and is also so achingly beautiful and sad and heartfelt and real as we watch the relationship progress, flourish and disintegrate through time. BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR is certainly one of the very best films of the year and possibly of the decade, and has what is certainly to be the two best female performances in recent years. I can only hope that Exarchopolous and Seydoux are remembered and rightfully recognized during Oscar season.

Excellent

Me llegó 24 hrs después de haberla pedido en buen estado.

Increíble película, la quería en físico y Criterion Collection se caracteriza por la increíble calidad de sus remasterizaciones.

The film is pretty great, as I knew since I had already seen it in theatre. As a french speaking person I would I have liked to have the original title written in french in first place on the front of the DVD (since it is originally a french movie...) But it's ok anyway, I wanted this edition of the movie because it brought a different packaging of the other "blue" editions. No extra except for tv spots... But great film and different (good) packaging, so worth it.