Monday, November 3, 2014

Dreaming of France - 11.3.14


Dreaming of France
meme created by An Accidental Blog
join this week's round and add your link here

Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to my blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it. Maybe we can all satisfy our yearnings for France, until we get there again.

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Today I am sharing a double review.

I watched the movie first and read the graphic novel second and found it does not matter which order you decide to do as both versions are different and special in their own way in telling the love story between two women. I loved each version equally.

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Blue Is The Warmest Color (2013)
Directed by: Abdellatif Kechiche
Written by: Abdellatif Kechiche (scenario, adaptation and dialogue) and
Ghalia Lacroix (scenario, adaptation and dialogue)
Based on graphic novel by: Julie Maroh

Starring:
Léa Seydoux as Emma
Adèle Exarchopoulos as Adèle

My rating: 5

Per imdb:
Adele's life is changed when she meets Emma, a young woman with blue hair, who will allow her to discover desire, to assert herself as a woman and as an adult. In front of others, Adele grows, seeks herself, loses herself and ultimately finds herself through love and loss.

Neat-o trivia bit from imdb:
In preparation for her role as Emma, Léa Seydoux attended painting and sculpture lessons. She also undertook extensive reading on arts and philosophy, and visited museums before filming began. To assist her in portraying the masculine characteristics of the arts student role, the director requested Seydoux to go for training sessions to tone up her physique and also study the films of Marlon Brando and James Dean to learn their traits.


CHECK out the graphic novel version:

Blue is the Warmest Color
by Julie Maroh

Find out more about this book and author:
Amazon
Goodreads
Website

Published: 2013
Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press
Genre: France, Graphic Novel, LGBTQ
Paperback: 160 pages
Rating: 5

In this tender, bittersweet, full-color graphic novel, a young woman named Clementine discovers herself and the elusive magic of love when she meets a confident blue-haired girl named Emma: a lesbian love story for the ages that bristles with the energy of youth and rebellion and the eternal light of desire.

First published in France by Glénat, the book has won several awards, including the Audience Prize at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, Europe's largest.



My two-bits: for both film and graphic novel

I fell in love with Léa just like Adele. Léa came across so cool and hip as in keeping with this story which is primarily character driven.

The visuals and quiet non-verbal moments of the film and the illustrations from the graphic novel were very effective in presenting the beautiful and ugly parts of a love story.

Both versions share the main thrust of the story. And although they end the same, they do in different ways. Not my ideal endings, but works for the stories.

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* beware: very steamy scenes in both the film and graphic novel


 
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