Getting Warmer Yet
I'd thought to combine New Yorker's review of Blue Is the Warmest Color with their on-line blog's coverage of complaints about abuse of cast and crew by the director. I can't squeeze it that much, however. Instead, I'm swiping a leaf from the mag's multi-layer "book" -- posting my thoughts re their blog a few minutes ago. And now I can focus on Anthony Lake's captivating review in this week's magazine.
"...the force and the firepower of the lovers’ intent: a fusillade of cries and clutches, grabs and slaps - a pitch of pleasure so entwined with desperation that we find ourselves NOT [my caps] in the realm of the pornographic but on the brink of romantic agony.
"... the camera rises over the pair of them... the eager geometry of soixante-neuf... it is, if anything, a relief to see them as pure bodies, blissed out at full length, and no longer just as heads trapped in closeup and besieged with worries, words, and all the other short-term [clutter]...
"...their trip to a museum, where we focus exclusively on marble derrières and painted nudes, all female, as though no other art could ever matter. Perhaps it doesn’t, to a heart possessed.
"The film is, to a compelling degree, the history of [Adèle's] face - tearful, sniffing, puffed with dismay, spotted and blotchy on a cold day, suddenly ravishing, and reddening in embarrassment or lust...
"And so to bed." (I couldn't NOT include his transition.) "A strong feminist case could and will be made against Blue Is the Warmest Color, alleging that its most naked aspect is [Director] Kechiche’s unblinking gaze..." (This is all Lake says about the controversy; the compartmentalization is pretty neat -- though he cannot manage to refer to his colleague's excellent post on it.)
The review cites a cocktail-party scene at film's end, with someone nattering on about "...why women 'attain different levels of reality.'" And Lake concludes, "[p]hilosophers can talk about reality all night; she [Adèle, seen "glancing aside," evidently hearing the inane chatter] lives there, with a wildness of which they can only dream."
I can hardly wait to see it.
"...the force and the firepower of the lovers’ intent: a fusillade of cries and clutches, grabs and slaps - a pitch of pleasure so entwined with desperation that we find ourselves NOT [my caps] in the realm of the pornographic but on the brink of romantic agony.
"... the camera rises over the pair of them... the eager geometry of soixante-neuf... it is, if anything, a relief to see them as pure bodies, blissed out at full length, and no longer just as heads trapped in closeup and besieged with worries, words, and all the other short-term [clutter]...
"...their trip to a museum, where we focus exclusively on marble derrières and painted nudes, all female, as though no other art could ever matter. Perhaps it doesn’t, to a heart possessed.
"The film is, to a compelling degree, the history of [Adèle's] face - tearful, sniffing, puffed with dismay, spotted and blotchy on a cold day, suddenly ravishing, and reddening in embarrassment or lust...
"And so to bed." (I couldn't NOT include his transition.) "A strong feminist case could and will be made against Blue Is the Warmest Color, alleging that its most naked aspect is [Director] Kechiche’s unblinking gaze..." (This is all Lake says about the controversy; the compartmentalization is pretty neat -- though he cannot manage to refer to his colleague's excellent post on it.)
The review cites a cocktail-party scene at film's end, with someone nattering on about "...why women 'attain different levels of reality.'" And Lake concludes, "[p]hilosophers can talk about reality all night; she [Adèle, seen "glancing aside," evidently hearing the inane chatter] lives there, with a wildness of which they can only dream."
I can hardly wait to see it.