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| Blue is the Warmest ColorDirected by Abdellatif Kechiche Four Stars |
Abdellatif Kechiche’s “Blue is the Warmest Color” is a work
of disarming emotional intensity. What begins as a coming out tale becomes a
coming of age one, and graduates finally into a harsh reminder that we never
exhaust the well of hard lessons we've left to learn. A relationship is a
two-sided blade, and in our youth we know not how to wield it. Sex appeals to
us first as an extravagance of adulthood and quickly becomes a haven from the
remaining tumult of adolescence. But that haven becomes a refuge, and
that refuge an asylum, an isolating force that no longer offers reprieve but
collars and represses our capacity to develop as individuals. We pour all of
ourselves into the symbiosis and lose our sense of self. If we’re lucky we
endure this cataclysm with time to recover before adulthood strips away the
barricades, before it exposes us. It was a lesson I learned the summer before college, I recall. Well, started learning anyway. It’s never a clean break.