Kiss Me in Blue (An Analysis of Abdellatif Kechiche’s “Blue is the Warmest Color”)
As soon as Adele’s lips met Emma’s, her lips bloomed blue. The color seeped into her skin, the way she dressed, the things she did, knew, and felt; and the awkward brown teenage girl reached a womanhood that was far from the point where she started. She began unsure, afraid to mesh lips with another girl — afraid of what this delineation from sexual norms meant not only to her but to others. Yet as Kechiche’s narrative continued, an unfolding took place. Blue was the hair-color of Adele’s first true female lover. It was the color of the clothes she began to wear, vibrant hues on the color wheel which contrasted the dull colors of the people around her. Blue was the color sweeping over Adele’s taut breasts in the painting Emma created in her likeness, and it was the color that would stick with her though it was snuck away from her lover. In Kechiche’s piece, blue means everything because of its contrast, connotations, and symbolism; it evokes emotion because it stands out from the dull brown colors of tame every-now-and-then lovers and has strength in its associations with nudity and bare blue intimacy.
To begin Kechiche’s cinematographic artistry, Adele departs from her house chasing after a bus in dead, lifeless clothes. Make no mistake, she is exactly how she’s expected to be — dull and resigned to French classes, popular girls’ circles, and chatter about male love interests. But that’s just it, in a pursuit to meet expectations, she never got to meet herself. The shock of Emma’s presence begins with her blue hair. It is a color that is bold and intimidating because it speaks to a world outside of the one the other characters are used to living in. Almost like a target, Emma’s blue hair represents her marked difference from everyone else. The other girls Adele knows can tell she is a lesbian because of the low cut of her hair and the coloring. Later they laugh at her and abuse her because she spends time with the homosexual. As with all bullies, they are disgusted and afraid of the things that make Adele and Emma different from the rest of them. But these belligerent women remain brown and untouched by the beauty of self-realization as Adele — like depicted in Marcelina Amelia’s painting of Adele and Emma swapping tongues — takes on Emma’s vibrant blue color.
It is true that blue alone is just a color, but one of the key implements of “Blue is the Warmest Color” is in the connotations — the things unsaid and yet felt. Emma, as an artist, embraces themes of nudity and naturism. She paints Adele with blue and when she is most enamored with Adele in middle portions of the movie, her hair is blue. The color becomes a symbol. The ideals, customs, and subjects associated with blue are what make the color so emotional. As Emma buries her head into Adele’s breasts and sends her hands roaming, the camera zooms in on her blue head of hair as if to say ‘Blue is where lovemaking is’. Afterwards, as Adele lies naked, Emma paints her with the color blue cupping her breasts. Again, the color appears with strong sexual representations. Though when the chain snaps and the two lovers are no longer deep enough in love, Emma’s hair is a dreary blonde, matching the same dull and neutral color of Adele’s existence before she met the lesbian. Likewise, when Adele copulates with a male interest in the beginning of the movie there is no blue. There are only the brown colors of Adele and her male lover’s hair and the neutral color of her face, lit sparsely as the dissatisfaction of the encounter in his bed is made apparent. Without love there is no blue. Though, with lust, desire, and want there is an influx. It is because of these pairings that blue has a hold on the audience. Because where love is felt, blue is seen.
Kechiche’s design favors color. Every color is an emotion. Blue is typically the color of the cold, but the warmer colors of the scenes Kechiche set up are not strong enough. Adele flocks to Emma and finds warmth in this distant place. Blue is greater than neutral because it is different, it marks courage and Adele’s growth in character because it arrived on the head of a bold woman with nothing to lose. Adele and Emma made love in blue and now we may never forget the color of their faces as they laid in the grass, sun shining down. A woman changed with just one catch of the eye. She touched her and suddenly she was new.
