Blue Is the Warmest Color, the Palme d’Or-winning film by Abdellatif Kechiche, continues to draw controversy for its NC-17 sex scenes. But not every theater is taking notes from the MPAA:
[The recommendation from the MPAA ratings board that “no children will be admitted”] is only, in the end, a recommendation, without legal or contractual force. And at least one theater has decided to flout it. The IFC Center in Greenwich Village — part of the IFC family, which includes Sundance Selects, the label that submitted “Blue” to the ratings board in the first place — will not turn away curious youngsters. In an e-mailed statement, John Vanco, senior vice president and general manager of the IFC Center … announced that “high school age patrons” would be admitted.
A.O. Scott, whose 14-year-old daughter viewed the film (twice), offers advice to parents:
You have your own rules, and your own reasons for enforcing them, and naked bodies writhing in ecstasy may not be something you want your kids to see. But in some ways, because of its tone and subject matter, “Blue” is a movie that may be best appreciated by viewers under the NC-17 age cutoff. It’s a movie about a high school student, after all, confronting issues — peer pressure, first love, homework, postgraduate plans — that will be familiar to adolescents and perhaps more exotic to the middle-aged. In spite of linguistic and cultural differences, the main character, moody, self-absorbed and curious, will remind many American girls of themselves, their friends and the heroines of the young adult novels they devour. The content of the film is really no racier that what is found in those books, but our superstition about images designates it as adults-only viewing.
Alyssa Rosenberg applauds Scott for “talking publicly about the value of introducing your children to challenging culture, instead of focusing solely and obsessively on the potential dangers”:
So often, pop culture’s treated as if its only possible impact on young people who consume it (and too often, older people, too) is deleterious. And it’s absolutely true that films, television, books, comics, video games, and even museum installations can be frightening, confusing, upsetting, and challenging.
But they can also provide flashes of profound recognition that make viewers, readers, and players feel less alone in the world. They can stun you with beauty, or wound you with ugliness. They can level you with humor. Loving something can provide profound connections to people who share your affection for it. And even when a piece of culture profoundly disturbs you, it can open up the world to you, and reveal big truths that you’d previously avoided. These are risks that are worth taking.
Daniel D’Addario agrees that teens “can handle some on-screen sexuality – and they might just be enriched by art.” Michelle Dean praises the film but questions whether its depictions of lesbian sex are realistic. For Stephanie Zacharek, the question is: “At this point, what reasonably curious person doesn’t want to see Blue Is the Warmest Color? But what’s going to happen when people trek out, revved up for lots of hot lesbian sex, and find something else?”
[S]ome will see Blue Is the Warmest Color as pure horndog bait, yet another degradation of the female image made by a guy with his dirty-minded camera. Others—more, I hope—will see a story about the universality of desire and heartbreak. Love will tear us apart again. For better or worse, that truth is more enduring than politics.
Richard Corliss calls the film “unmissable” and suggests other filmmakers take note:
Instead of wondering why there is so much whoopee in Blue Is the Warmest Color — and it’s actually not that much: about nine minutes in the nearly three-hour film — one might ask why there is so little in most other movies. Considering that sex is an activity almost everyone participates in and thinks about even more, it’s startling and depressing to think about how few movies connect their characters’ lives with their erotic drives.
David Edelstein also attests to the film’s power:
The movie goes on for three hours without an emotional letup — it’s finally overwhelming. People who’ve been through a terrible recent breakup—or can conjure up the sense memory of one — should approach Blue Is the Warmest Color with care. It might not just open old wounds. It might show you wounds you didn’t know you had.
The Dish 