The Sex Gourmet – Blue is the Warmest Color (2013)

#3 Adèle Exarchopoulos & Léa Seydoux

‘I miss you. I miss not touching each other. Not seeing each other, not breathing in each other. I want you. All the time. No one else.’

This quote sets the scene in ‘Blue is the Warmest Color’. A vivid and beautiful story about young love which is both ardent and capricious. The film does not shy away from the realism of lesbian love and it is exhibited by both Adèle & Léa with bravery and passion. While we have numerous sex scenes that could be dissected and discussed at length, the whole film is just one erogenous zone impatiently waiting to be licked, sucked and fucked. This feeling is conjured up by the director through the consistent use of food, music and colour, but I find this feeling is evoked mainly through the mutable expressions of our leading character Adèle (played by Exarchopoulos).

Before Adéle meets the nymph-like, blue haired Emma (played by Seydoux), she is preoccupied with the attention of a young man, her school friends and the book ‘The Life of Marianne’. We see her self-consciously throughout the movie putting her hair up only to take it down shortly after. We see close ups of her permanently parted bee-stung lips, while she eats (constantly) and when she kisses. Her girlish expressions when she is upset and threatened, are vulnerable and yielding at the same time. She is a human chimera, face changing from girl to woman with each experience and painful life event that we see her go through. The film’s sexual and pervading heartbeat is completely dependent on Exarchopoulos ever changing expressions, and her performance as a young woman coming to terms with her sexual identity and falling in love for the first time. It is truly beautiful to watch at its most subtle.

Less subtle than the ingrained overtone of the whole film, is the actual sex we see in various stages of the 3 hours. After a a few platonic meetings between our entangled pair, they display their love for each other in very energetic and exciting scenes. The initial sexual contact brought on by a touching first kiss in a park, Adéle and Emma are then seen in Emma’s bedroom, vertical, naked, and in shadows as a sunset filters through curtains. Their silhouettes showing their breasts pressing against each other as they kiss and then take turns to go down on each other. The latter shown in explicit detail leaving very little to the imagination. Tongues and faces wet with their arousal, both are seen grabbing at each others asses with insistence as they continue their southern exploits.

At five / six minutes long this scene fills as much as it can to show us how they are consumed by each other sexually. Emma’s look of ecstasy as Adèle slowly and artistically rolls her tongue over her hardened nipples, Adéle’s intense orgasm, changing her face into salacious woman from bewildered girl as Emma devours her from behind. The only thing missing from this arresting display is a lack of sweat! No points will be lost here however, the aesthetic of this scene is captivating. Emma’s pale smooth body against Adèles tan as they trip on tribadism and explore every part of each other is pure heat. The shock of Emma’s blue hair and the blue bedding that is present in their lovemaking scenes only adds to the eroticism. You can forget that the tip of a flame is hottest in this instance.

From this initial sexual contact we have others through out the film, three to be exact. Two which take place after both Emma & Adéle meet each others parents. Both shorter in duration and more playful as we witness the journey of their relationship. We then see three goodbyes, because a relationship so all consuming and passionate in this instance surely cannot stand the test of time and common interest. But, forever grateful for that sensual journey that we have been invited on, and as the credits roll up to the sound of a distant steel drum, one is left thinking of the beautiful Adéle after her first experience with Emma, dancing fluidly in the sunlight on her 18th birthday to the blue, dulcet tones of ‘I Will Follow’ by Lykke Li.

‘You’re my river running high
Run deep, run wild
I follow, I follow you
Deep sea baby, I follow you’

10/10 – For making me question my own designation. 

by Claire Fagan