Blue Is the Warmest Colour

This is a film that demands and justifies very close attention for the whole of its three-hour duration, and it left me emotionally drained. The performances of the two leads, Adèle Exarchopoulos as Adèle, and Léa Seydoux as Emma, are astonishing. The film follows very closely Adèle's life from schoolgirl to the beginning of her adult life well engaged on her career as a teacher. What impresses is how all the forces and influences to which she is subject are scrupulously and thoughtfully marshalled into a credible person's story. The main event is her first serious emotional engagement (aka 'love affair') which, as is so often the case, ended painfully for her. At the end of the film she is a wiser, more thoughtful, and slightly scarred woman.

Many of the elements that will form Adèle as an adult are here in this film, thoughtfully and subtly present - family, class, sex, peer pressure, ambitions and professional demands. Much work and thought went into this screenplay, and it easily justifies its long duration. The film was directed by Abdellatif Kechiche, who also adapted it from the source graphic novel. The transformation of Adèle from puppyish teenager to confident professional in the course of the film is gradual and astonishing.

Many discussions of this film are really discussions of the sex scenes. Being located in the UK, I expected this because I know how taboo mention of sex is here in polite conversation. The only rule is - if one must mention sex don't confess to being interested in the sex or enjoying it. I have heard no discussions of the pasta-eating scenes (there are three!) One should not go to this film on an empty stomach!

Much of the cinematography is hand-held, with Adèle being on screen for nearly all of the time with a camera not much more than about nine inches from her. This is not normally my preferred filming method, but I was happy with it here. Blue is a unifying motif throughout the film.

Le Skylab

This film was directed by Julie Delpy, who also wrote the screenplay. I have the impression that she succeeded very well in making the film that she set out to make. The film is about a family get-together in Britanny. It is well-directed, with fluid camerawork moving among a large cast, with a good feeling for the rhythm of the film as the events ebb and flow. The film has a flash-back structure, with an opening scene in the present soon flashing back to events in about 1979 when Albertine, the main character, was 11 years old. The film stays in the 1970s, recalling a train excursion to Brittany where the family spent time together eating and enjoying each other's company. At the end of the film there is the short scene back in the present.

This is a woman's film and it reflects a woman's interest in family and children. For me, much of the film lacked content because we watched ordinary people being ordinary people, and ordinary children being ordinary children, with nothing much happening. There was a lot of small talk signifying nothing, with no drama. When children amused each other with their childish anecdotes we had to listen to the WHOLE anecdote, the filmmaker clearly supposing that this would engage or entertain us. There were a few ups and downs, as there often are in families, but nothing of much consequence. The film seemed authentically French, as it should do, Delpy being French. The family ate a spit-roasted lamb but in all the chatter, I do not recall much discussion of either the food or the wine. This did not seem to me to be very French at all! Maybe these conversations occurred when I was squinting at my watch, fighting the urge to leave the cinema.

At the time of the flashback, 1979, many were concerned at the news that a space vehicle, Skylab, would crash to earth, possibly in France, causing alarm that was passed from the adults to the children. This is a barmy ingredient that gives the film and extra whiff of authenticity. There is even a shot of Skylab tumbling through space.

Delpy has clearly learnt from Richard Linklater the usefulness of trains as sets. The film, having some similarities to that wonderful film All Who Love Me Can Take The Train, starts and ends with a family on a train.

This brings me to what I saw as errors of judgement in this film. In the opening scene Albertine, adult, with her partner and two children are in a crowded train with reserved seats and she asks other passengers, also in reserved seats, to move so that they can sit together as a family. The other passengers refuse. The closing scene is a continuation of this, with Albertine insisting and even going so far as to lecture the recalcitrant passengers on the qualities of virtue. I cringed. In the second scene of the film Albertine, now eleven years old, is in a crowded train compartment, and there is brief eye contact between her and another passenger across the compartment, who smiles back and waves to her. He is immediately accused of being a pervert, and he storms out of the compartment, embarrassed and angry. This was in 1979. These scenes were unnecessary, embarrassing and against the tone of the rest of the film. I think 'Le Skylab' is a poorly-chosen title for this film, with its connotations of science fiction, and it will discourage potential viewers who would enjoy revelling in its family values for a couple of hours.