‘Blue Is the Warmest Color’ and the Crippling Loneliness of Intimacy

This is not a review of Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue Is the Warmest Color. It has already won the Palm d’Or as well as the deserved admiration of most people who have seen it. Rather, I’d like to assess both its central premise — that if you are untrue to the love that fulfills who you are, it will boomerang and destroy you — and the way in which the film is told and shot.

One tangential thought that occurred to me while I was watching BITWC (notice how the acronym almost looks like BITCH) is how speaking French natively makes your lips twice as full and pouty as other languages, except perhaps the Slavic tongues.