Beautiful, frustrating, and tragic: just like love.
Creative Staff
Story and Art: Julie Maroh
Translation/Adaptation: Ivanka Hahnenberger
What They Say
Clementine is a junior in high school who seems “normal” enough: she has friends, family, and even a boyfriend. But she can’t reciprocate his feelings toward her, so she breaks up with him. When her openly gay best friend takes her to a gay bar, she becomes captivated by Emma, a punkish, confident girl with blue hair, an even that leads Clementine to discover new aspects of herself, both passionate and tragic.
Blue is the Warmest Color is a tender, bittersweet, full-color graphic novel about the elusive, reckless magic of love: a lesbian love story for the ages that bristles with the energy of youth, rebellion, and the eternal light of desire.
First published in French by Belgium’s Glénat, the book has won several awards, including the Audience Prize at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, Europe’s largest.
The film adaptation of Blue is the Warmest Color, directed by Abdellatif Kechiche and starting Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exachopoulos, won the Palme d’Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Clementine is a young high school girl in France, and like all children, she is in the process of finding herself. On the surface, her life appears to be normal—even happy. She has good friends, loving parents (even if her father is a bit aloof and obstinate), and the eye of a handsome senior named Thomas. This would all be well and good if Clementine could respond to his affections, but something holds her back, a feeling she barely understands and fears to name that gnaws at corners of her mind and haunts her dreams. She understands that this is what she is supposed to want, and the question becomes why doesn’t she? The answer doesn’t present itself until she goes with her homosexual friend Valentin to a gay bar. That evening she meets Emma, a confident, older girl with short blue hair. This chance encounters spins out into a love affair of a lifetime—one fraught with self-doubt, miscommunications, and mistakes. One that ends far too early.
Blue is the Warmest Color is told mainly from Clementine’s point of view after her death from a heart defect. Her last request is that her parents allow her love, Emma, to collect her diaries. Emma reads them and with her we get a firsthand account of Clementine’s pain and confusion regarding her burgeoning homosexual feelings and the joy and freedom she experienced once she and Emma finally reciprocated each other’s love.
One of the best aspects of this graphic novel is the manner in which Maroh approaches the relationship. Finding lasting love is hard enough, but the problems inherit in two people joining lives is magnified tenfold when their love is considered deviant—even outright dangerous—by society. Clementine’s inner turmoil over what she “knows” to be right and what she feels to be right is honest and heartbreaking and it’s impossible not to feel it yourself when reading. When she and Emma finally declare their love for each other and become a couple, it’s a relief, but only for a moment. Fairy tales end with lovers marrying and the final line, “They lived happily ever after,” but anyone who has been in a real relationship will tell you that it’s not that simple. Real relationships require hard work and compromise and people stumble as often as they succeed in trying to find that balance between retaining one’s own identity and merging that with another’s. Clementine and Emma hurt each other as often as they save each other, and that, in an odd way, adds a sense of realism and legitimacy to their relationship.
Please don’t misunderstand me or think that this is some sort of rant about relationships from some broken-hearted Romantic. I only mean to say that Maroh presents a full relationship here—warts and all. Neither Clementine nor Emma are villains in this story, nor do they purposefully try to hurt each other. It just happens. Sometimes it’s a careless word or thought, and other times it’s an action that Clementine knows is wrong, but engages in anyway because it’s a way of expressing some inner turmoil that she has no way of dealing with in a healthy manner. The real tragedy of this love story is that the small acts of pain the people inflict on each other is the result of inner pain they cannot deal with. Many of these people cannot accept themselves for whom they are, and because of that cannot accept others as well.
There is obviously a political dimension to this story, but another element where Blue is the Warmest Color succeeds so well is that it never becomes polemic. Clementine, in fact, is apolitical, and chooses not to join Emma at rallies and protests. The message almost comes as a byproduct of the story, and—almost paradoxically—this is why it serves as a powerful political statement. The story comes first, the message second, and because of that this graphic novel can be read alone as a legitimate work of art. It isn’t dogmatic or prescriptive—it just presents real people in real situations, trying to figure out their inner selves and their place within this world. It just so happens that they must make that place because who they are does not fit with society’s notion of normality.
Overall, it’s just a damn good story told incredibly well. Maroh’s drawing style and use of color reminds me of Will Eisner (which is one of the highest compliments I can think of). Her panel placements are fairly regular and routine, but this only serves to highlight the moments when she breaks from using them and erases the border between the image and the gutter. I would be remiss if I did not also mention her use of color. The majority of the story is told in shades of gray with the only other color used being blue. It’s a highly effective strategy and I became so accustomed to it that at first I did not notice the gradual inclusion of more colors in the final third of the book. I had to backtrack to pinpoint the exact moment when it occurred because I was so engrossed in the story, which, to me, is the mark of an excellent comic and a comic creator: that moment when the technique becomes invisible.
In Summary
Blue is the Warmest Color is a powerful love story about the relationship between two lesbians in France. It presents a multi-faceted relationship that is heartwarming and tragic at the same time. The quality of the art is superb and tells the story wonderfully, and while there is a decidedly political aspect to this graphic novel, that message is never presented at the expense of the story. This is a soulful, human, realistic love story that can be appreciated by anybody regardless of sexual orientation. Highly recommended.
Content Grade: A+
Art Grade: A+
Packaging Grade: A+
Text/Translation Grade: A+
Age Rating: N/A
Released By: Arsenal Pulp
Release Date: September 25, 2013
MSRP: $19.95
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