“A love story so erotically charged that it short circuits our higher functions.”
—Joe Williams St. Louis Post-Dispatch
My higher functions were indeed short circuited after I exited the theatre. I was spell-bound, heart-broken, and utterly absorbed into the characters’ story. I couldn’t articulate anything but, “Oh my God! Wow!”
A film about the raw longing for true identity, belonging, and love, Blue is the Warmest Color chronicles the life of Adele. As a 15 year old, Adele, meticulously played by Adele Exarchopoulos, is bright, popular, pretty, though reserved and shy. She attracts the attention of a handsome senior and embarks on her first sexual relationship. Unfortunately, Adele becomes disenchanted by her new love, and thus, is overcome by the sense that she is damaged.
Everything changes, though, when Adele passes a blue haired woman on a crosswalk. Although the woman drapes her arm around another woman, she turns back to Adele as Adele turns back to her. Both of their faces question, “Do I know you?”
From that moment on, Adele’s dreams are erotically haunted by the blue haired woman. Obsessed and possessed, Adele visits a lesbian bar and sets her eyes upon her target. And, so begins this fierce love story, unflinchingly raw.
Adele, younger and less experienced than her blue haired artist Emma, becomes besotted. She begins to live inside of her breaths, watching her shoulders rise and sink in centimeters at night.
Emma is at first totally immersed in Adele’s fresh faced presence. But, as years go by, their love wanes, like most young loves. Adele, however, is determined to hold onto her first true love—a love that has defined her sexual identity.
As a younger divorcee, I can attest to the love these characters experience; I know what it is to hear one’s breath and feel one’s heart beat at night and to vow that, when those two things stop, I will stop too. Also, I understand how it feels to lose that young, raw, true, intense love and not want to let go. True love is so rare, so you believe, “I must hold on because I will never have this kind of love again.” And, it’s true. You won’t.
A movie about youthful, rapturous love deserves a young, luscious, and juicy wine. Justin Chin, certified sommelier and personal trainer at Fit Life, recommended the Domaine de la Bonne Tonne 2011 Morgon Beaujolais.
According to Justin, “Beaujolais comes from the Gamay grape variety with aromas and flavors of strawberries, watermelon, and cranberries. Aromas and flavors also present are bubblegum, cotton candy, violet, lilac, and peonies.”
The wine smells like youth and all of the fresh and curious prospects of love that accompany that wonderful age. Once the wine decants and opens, however, gone is the cotton candy and strawberry bubblegum; what ensues is a sharper more jaded cranberry flavor. Domaine de la Bonne Tonne 2011 Morgon Beaujolais, which you can buy at K&L Wine Merchants, clearly and beautifully mirrors the film’s coming-of-age tale.
Below is the trailer for Blue is the Warmest Color:
Sauce and Screen 