It traces their affair from flirtation through a bitter break-up and its melancholy aftermath with such force of feeling that you seem to be living their lives yourself.Ī still from Blue is the Warmest Colour. The film, directed by Abdellatif Kechiche, a French director of Tunisian origin widely regarded as one of French cinema's small handful of masters, is the story of a great passion between two teenage girls. ''On one side are obsessive perfectionists, on the other self-involved exhibitionists, or so the theory goes.'' Is this true of the Blue winning team? Almost certainly, but with the added spice of Frenchness.īlue is the Warmest Colour is quite extraordinary. ''Directors and actors being what they are, they like a good argument,'' wrote a commentator in a piece comparing the saga with other screen clashes. I think it's a beautiful result and beautiful film, I want to do beautiful films and it's not about me.The swirl of hostility, accusations and counter-accusations, retribution and jeering from the wings that has enveloped Blue is the Warmest Colour, the French erotic epic that was the toast of last year's Cannes Film Festival, makes most of Hollywood's catfights look pale by comparison. Sometimes I would come in and say, 'I don't give a shit' because I knew that he would get what he wanted. With Abdellatif, I knew that he was going to film 100 takes. If I do too many takes, I'm too self-conscious. “I, for example, don't like to do too many takes. “It's not because you do 300 takes you're a genius – that is just his method,” says Seydoux. You just listened to his voice and you knew it wasn't useable – he was so drunk and saying things that weren't the subject of the film.”Īnd yet this is a film where it seems that the ends justified the means. The man who plays the Emma's stepfather is one of the producers and he was so drunk in one scene. He wants to be close to the truth every time. He wants us to really be smoking a joint and drinking beer. “Abdel would kill me, he hates fabrication. “I didn't use any tricks to make myself cry,” says Exarchopoulos. Kechiche demanded a level of realism in every scene, clothed on or not. But for me it is more difficult to show my feelings than my body.” He was using three cameras, and when you have to fake your orgasm for six hours. Of course it was kind of humiliating sometimes, I was feeling like a prostitute. We can fake these things, you can't fake feelings, but you can fake body language.” Did they ever worry they were merely playing out a male fantasy? “Yes. You have something to protect and tape it under. Was there anything that she refused to do? “Yes, cunnilingus!” Seydoux laughs. And he shoots for such a long time, I was thinking, 'Man, you can stop there!'” “I was supposed to touch myself and it was supposed to be my fantasy and then when I opened my eyes and saw her we laughed so much. “The first time we filmed a sex scene, I was just laughing,” says Exarchopoulos. The actresses didn't know each other before filming began. Seydoux, right, and Exarchopoulos in Blue is the Warmest Colour Like David Fincher and Stanley Kubrick, Kechiche is a director who shoots hundreds of takes. They tell me that the acclaim for the film has calmed their nerves somewhat following a difficult and turbulent six-month shoot. While waiting to interview Seydoux, 28 and Exarchopoulos, 19, I can see them locked arm-in-arm, sharing gossip and sniggering. Off-screen, the actresses have clearly become firm friends. Not least because of a six-minute- sex scene, which left many critics wondering if the action was simulated or not. One thing is certain, ever since the Cannes premiere of Kechiche's loose adaptation of Julie Maroh's graphic novel about two young lovers, the actresses have been the most talked about couple in film. Since then I've felt humiliated, dishonoured, living with a curse.” “The Palme d'Or win only gave me a brief moment of happiness.
“The film is too sullied”, he told the French magazine Télérama.
And now Kechiche has said that his prize winner should not even be released. The actresses were apparently unhappy with the director's methods. They happily posed for the cameras together when picking up the prize, but behind the scenes the three were at loggerheads. When it awarded the Palme d'Or to Blue Is the Warmest Colour, the Cannes Film Festival jury took the unusual step of sharing the prize between its director Abdellatif Kechiche, and its two principal actresses Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos.