Well, this is a wonderful film and a beautiful one - it lingers well after watching, somewhere in one's stomach and chest. It'd been on my radar for all the wrong reasons - the infamously extended, explicit sex scene and then the suggestions of exploitation of the two female leads, Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux - and at three hours into the bargain, I had no plans to watch it. But then I saw the trailer (I can't remember if it was this, Beach House-soundtracked one, but it captures the tone), which changed my mind because it made the film look amazing - which it pretty much is.
Blue is everywhere, of course, at times subtly and at others very strikingly (in the shot in the water, for example), and after long enough, even notably for its absence; in that respect, I couldn't help but think of another film with 'blue' in its title, which I still think of as my favourite ever. Yet for the most part it felt very naturalistic, and the thing that most struck me immediately after was how immersive it was - while I was watching it, I completely believed the story and the characters, including how Adèle was feeling throughout (no doubt the tendency towards close-ups, lingering especially on faces, played a part). There's a powerful phenomenology to it, an interplay between the luminous and the everyday; it felt real, and also like art, in the best kind of way.
(w/ Meribah)
(w/ Meribah)
