This is the rare love story that has real emotional truth about it. You realize just how rare films are that make a sincere attempt to catch what it really is like to fall for someone, without sentimentality, forced cuteness or cheap emotional manipulation. There are countless of films about people falling in love, but when you see "Blue is the Warmest Colour". I just want to start off by saying this is an amazing film about young love that is actually honest with its audience. It's an object meant to be handled, felt, interpreted.Reviewed by Loving_Silence 10 /10 An Honest and Emotionally Devastating Film about Life, Love and Sexuality
Maroh did, however, criticise the film's explicit sex scenes, saying they brought to mind "a brutal and surgical display, exuberant and cold, of so-called lesbian sex, which turned into porn, and made me feel very ill at ease … I lost the control of my book as soon as I gave it away to be read. Neither of us had a militantly activist intent." But it also served to tell a story of how a romantic encounter happens, how a love story builds, collapses, and what remains of the love that was awoken after a breakup, a mourning, a death. Everyone had the opportunity to interpret and identify freely with the book, but I really wanted to clarify my intention with it, once again. "I'd like that myself, those that I love, and all the others, would no longer be insulted, rejected, beaten up, raped, murdered … because of our differences. "Since the beginning my wish was to catch the attention of those who had no clue, had the wrong picture, based on false ideas, hated me/us," she said. When writing the graphic novel, said Maroh, she didn't set out to "make a book in order to preach to the choir, nor only for lesbians".
"Last night I realised this is the first time in cinema's history that a comic book had inspired a Palme d'Or movie and this idea petrified me," she wrote. Maroh herself wrote on her website that she was "absolutely overwhelmed, amazed, and grateful" for the "wonderful and breathtaking" win in Cannes. It is a graphic novel worthy of the highest praise and broad translation." "We were amazed, then, when at the end of April we learned that the film was accepted into the official competition, only to have word-of-mouth quickly build, leading to the stunning Palme d'Or win last Sunday."Īssociate publisher Robert Ballantyne added: "We are thrilled for the filmmakers, for Julie and her French publisher, and very excited for the impact this great story will have for LGBT culture and politics wherever it appears. We were thrilled but not entirely optimistic after all, who doesn't want to have their film at Cannes?" said Lam.
"By then, we were told the film was in production and that the producers hoped to submit it for consideration at Cannes. We appraised it and found it to be a profoundly moving coming-of-age story with beautiful artwork at the time, we didn't know a film was involved."Īrsenal Pulp signed the book up in October 2012. "We were first approached by the agent of the original publisher Glénat a little over a year ago she thought we would be interested in it given our interest in LGBT and graphic novel titles. " are indeed expecting lots of interest," said publisher Brian Lam. An English language version, titled Blue Angel, was originally due out in November, but after the film adaptation Blue is the Warmest Colour won the Palme d'Or in Cannes on Sunday, Arsenal Pulp is now readying the translation for publication in September. The story of a passionate lesbian romance, Julie Maroh's graphic novel was published by the Belgian graphic novel press Glénat in 2010. Small Canadian publisher Arsenal Pulp Press is pushing forward publication of its English translation of French graphic novel Le bleu est une couleur chaude following the triumph of the film version of the story at Cannes this weekend – the first adaptation of a comic ever to take the top prize at the film festival.