Cannes ’13: What Is This Thing Called Love?
Love is in the air at Cannes… Or something like that.
With only a couple of competition films left to unspool, the latest hot title is The Life of Adèle (and whose-alt title is not hot, Blue Is The Warmest Color, which screams queer cinema and should be dropped). The genius of the film is that this “lesbian coming-of-age” film feels like nothing of the kind. It just feels like a coming of age film that happens to have a first love that is homosexual. This cannot be said of Jeune & Jolie, which is inscrutably female or Stranger By The Lake, which is relentlessly male.
The turn-on of the long, graphic, realistic sex scene between the women is what is a turn-on about any sex where partners seek mutuality. (Cannes’ sexuality, unfortunately, has been dominated with men/boys who seem to be unaware of what women respond to sexually. Even with all the good sex in some of the films, incompetence has more screen time.). I honestly have no idea how gay men respond to two female bodies writhing for an extended period, but I think I can say that heterosexuals of both genders would appreciate the sex in this film.
Ultimately, however, the sex is some of the proof, not the pudding in Adèle.
One of the other great decisions—which I wondered about while watching the film—was that it doesn’t linger on the unaccepting voices in Adèle’s life. Nor are they dismissed. The character, it turns out, doesn’t sweat the small stuff. But when things matter to her, they matter quite deeply… no commitment-phobe she.
If you ask, I will tell you that Life of Adèle is my favorite of the “girls gone wild” films (which also include The Bling Ring, Sarah Prefers To Run, Behind The Candalabra, and, to some degree, The Past). But I believe there is room for all of it without dismissing any one of the other films on the basis of expectation.
There has been very little filmmaking that can really be called “bad” with a straight face. The fight is about the choices filmmakers have made about what they want to discuss with their work.
I am a big fan of intellectual consistency and emotional acceptance. In other words, love or hate what you love or hate, but spare —professionally—the claim that there is something broken about the work because you don’t like the message or that it’s superior work because you do like the message.
After all, isn’t the whole point NOT to get caught up in expectations?
“and whose-alt title is not hot, Blue Is The Warmest Color, which screams queer cinema and should be dropped…” Really, Mr. Poland!?! This sort of statement seems more apt to come from Jeffrey Wells than you. I find the alternate title to be much more stimulating to me as an avid filmgoer. Will it make really 1 dollar more worldwide with The Life of Adele as the title instead? I can only see that happening if people think it is the sequel to Life of Pi. Blue is the Warmest Color is just so more evocative.
I can’t speak to Wells, dj, but you respond well to art house, obviously. Life of Adele is potentially a breakout beyond the traditional niche. And sorry, that title screams “snob”
OK, so the graphic man sex in “Stranger” is relentless and gratuitous and you hate it but the graphic woman sex in “Blue” you’re all over?
Not sure where he used the word gratuitous, and relentless referred to the male point of view, not the sex. You seem to making the case that he is “not getting” Stranger because he is heterosexual, but enjoys Blue because he is. But the case he makes in the post and his comment is that whatever your sexual preference Blue tells its narrative from a more universal point of view.
Doesn’t seem that hard to decipher. Are you one of the few hundred people that have seen Stranger or Blue yet? Though both are apparently full of sex scenes is it fair to call them gratitous or graphic without seeing them?
See reference to “Lake” as “pornography” and “to what end?”.
I have noticed in many of the reviews of Stranger by the lake it is obvious that the straight male reviewers are repulsed by the male homosexuality due to their homophobia. The reviewer of Stranger by the lake is also a homophobe BUT he won’t admit it. Very typical of straight men, the lesbian film is getting a lot of positive buzz, yet this gay male movie is being criticized by male reviewers despite its positive buzz.
Finally, a gay male film that doesn’t deal with coming out or other cliche BS. This movie is very frank and very sexual with male nudity and explicit gay sex scenes and I am glad!
As a gay man I am tired of male homosexuality always being toned down for homophobic straight audiences. Glad the director got it right.
David… why would you “have no idea how gay men respond to two female bodies writhing for an extended period, but can say that heterosexuals of both genders would appreciate the sex in this film.”?
Is it erotic appreciation you’re talking about? Because otherwise I don’t know why gay men couldn’t appreciate well executed sexual interaction in a movie. Do you not appreciate brave and genuine depictions of gay male sex in film?
I don’t know… it’s just a strange comment to make.
“Very typical of straight men”
Goddamn heterophobe!
funny, I think “Life of Adele” sounds extremely queer cinema (and my immediate association from the title was it’s a bio-doc about the singer or a lesbian coming of age story), while Blue is the Warmest Color is much more abstract and invokes an art film series of associations for me with Kieslowski and Blue Valentine for example.