From the BBC:
An intimate love story between two young women has received rave reviews in Cannes as the film festival draws to a close.
Directed by Tunisian-born French director Abdellatif Kechiche, Blue is the Warmest Colour, has shocked some critics with its graphic sex scenes.
Variety magazine said it contained “the most explosively graphic lesbian sex scenes in recent memory”.
The film is the bookmakers’ favourite to win the Palme d’Or on Sunday.
But reviewers have speculated the film may require editing to secure cinema distribution.
The three-hour character study centres on the 15-year-old Adele, played by French actress Adele Exarchopoulos, and her lover Emma, played by Lea Seydoux.
The Hollywood Reporter said the “sprawling drama” would “raise eyebrows” as it crossed the barrier “between performance and the real deal”.
Kechiche, best known for his critically acclaimed 2007 film Couscous, said he would consider cutting some scenes to allow the widest possible audience to see the work.
“We wouldn’t want the film not to be screened because of one scene,” he said. “But of course that wouldn’t apply if it were the whole thing.”
The headline to this article caught my eye, for obvious reasons. As I write and read lesbian fiction (and romantic fiction), I’m heartened to see that a lesbian film is receiving such rave reviews. However, it always surprises me when people talk (or complain–hard to tell which it is, here) about ‘graphic sex scenes’. And yet, so many films contain such graphic, awful violence that I can still remember it years later. (Gaspar Noé’s film ‘Irreversible’, for example), and very little is said. (Though certainly in ‘Irreversible’s case, there was plenty posted about its violence, though most seemed to centre on the rape scene.)
Personally, I’d much rather watch a graphic sex scene than a violent one. Sex is something that most people experience in some form or other (mostly positive, I would hope), but violence, particularly on the scale shown in film, would not be.
This film will be on my ‘to watch’ list, and I hope it wins the Palme d’Or, and gets a wider distribution.
The game isn’t over.