Tag Archives: Blue Is The Warmest Colour

French Lesbian Drama ‘Summertime’ Is All The About 1970s And Two Women In Love

It’s a well spoken about fact that Hollywood is rubbish with queer female representation, which is why we’ve recently been looking at the movie scene in mainland Europe to help fill the void.

In addition to Breathe, Mélanie Laurent’s film about two women in a relationship turned twisted, there’s also Dual, about two women who fall in love despite a language barrier and of course, there’s the film that made waves just two short years ago, Blue Is The Warmest Colour.

It’s that last movie that new French film Summertime (La Belle Saison) is being compared to, not just for the obvious language similarity, but because of how beautifully it’s shot.

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Set in the 1970s, Summertime stars a young woman named Delphine (played by Izïa Higelin) who leaves her parents’ farm in the South of France to go and live in the big city.

It’s in Paris where she meets Carole (played by Cécile de France), who is part of the local feminist group. Carole also has a boyfriend, but that doesn’t stop Delphine from falling for her, hard, and it certainly doesn’t stop Carole from falling for Delphine right back.
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The dramatic side of things occurs when Delphine’s father gets sick and she has to move back to the farm to be with him.

Then, there’s double the drama when Delphine’s mother encourages her to marry their male neighbour, Antoine. That leaves Delphine with a choice; bow to her mother’s wishes and leave the woman she loves, or stay with her and risk disappointing her mother?

Despite this conflict, there are plenty of moments where we see Delphine and Carole happy and in love.

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Those who were lucky enough to see Summertime when it was shown at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) have called the relationship both beautiful and sexy. The Mary Sue‘s film reviewer even calls it “one of the sexiest movies [they’ve] ever seen”.

Unlike Blue Is The Warmest Colour‘s infamous love scene, which was terribly bad to the point where it was offensive, Summertime’s love scenes are well-staged and look as though the two women are madly in love, rather than being made to cater to the male gaze.

Much of that is probably down to the director, Catherine Corsini, who is gay and made the film with her partner, and thankfully, Summertime is all the better for it.

‘Dual’ Is a Love Story Where Language Barriers Don’t Matter

Europe has delivered some great gay films over the past few years.

In 2006 we were blessed with Imagine Me & You with Rach and Luce making us all shed a tear, 2011 had Swedish film Kiss Me (Kyss Mig) about a woman who has an affair with her stepmother’s daughter and in 2013 we fell for Blue Is The Warmest Colour‘s gorgeous French accents.

So after having enjoyed a good run of queer media both on the British Isles and on the continent, it’s time to add yet another film to the ever-growing list.

The next movie to join their ranks is Dual, which is a film that stars two leads (one Danish and one Slovene woman) who speak English to one another throughout the movie.

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Our two protagonists meet when 25-year old Danish woman Iben’s travels are temporarily ground to a halt when her plane is forced to stop in Slovenia.

The travel company sticks the passengers on a bus, to go to a hotel but when most of her counterparts leave, Iben decides to stay on, asking airport shuttle driver Tina (who is also in her 20s) to give her a sightseeing tour.

From then on, it’s quite easy for Dual‘s viewers to fall for the pair. With a language barrier being a bit of an obstacle, Iben and Tina speak English and when Tina says that she hates sleeping, they stay up talking all night.
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In fact, you know this duo is a big deal when not only does Iben skip her flight to be Tina but after a job interview goes wrong, Tina decides to ditch home and travel with her. Iben even accompanies her when Tina goes to come out to her parents.

Although Tina’s mother is ok with Tina’ sexuality (though she warns Iben that when they break up to make sure that Tina will “have the courage to go on alone”) Dual isn’t exactly a simple find yourself/fall in love type of story as Iben is also holding to a huge massive secret that viewers will want to keep watching for.

That’s all part of the intrigue though and you can see Dual at the Outflix Film Festival.

 

Kathleen Turner to Star In Trans Drama Play

American actor Kathleen Turner is a highly esteemed figure in Hollywood. Rising to prominence in the 1980s, Turner starred in Romancing the Stone (a rom-com that also featured Michael Douglas) and Prizzi’s Honor (a mob drama with Jack Nicholson) two roles which saw her win Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress.

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And then, for her role in Peggy Sue Got Married, Turner was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress and she was also up for Best Foreign Actress at the Premis Sant Jordi de Cinema.

It may seem odd then that with such a high profile career, the star’s next project is being led by a (little known) playwright from Altoona, Pennsylvania named John S. Anastasi.

And Turner isn’t the only big name to join Anastasi’s off-Broadway production either as Grammy Award nominated R&B singer Deborah Cox has also been added to the cast.

The play in question is called Would You Still Love Me If…, a drama about a lesbian couple whose relationship is tested when one of the women questions her gender and she considers undergoing gender reassignment surgery.

Kathleen Turner plays the mother of the woman questioning her gender identity, Deborah Cox (who has appeared on Broadway before, it should be noted) will play the surgeon, while the lesbian couple will be played by Rebecca Brooksher and Sofia Jean Gomez.

Of the inspiration behind the play, Anastasi explains that (French lesbian drama) Blue Is The Warmest Colour helped him come up with the idea.

About a year ago, I was down in the Village, and I went to see ‘Blue Is the Warmest Color’. I was moved by the relationship of these two women, and was pondering if there was anything that could change their love. For some reason, it crossed my mind — what if one of them decided they wanted to physically change. That was the germ of the idea.”

Many queer media fans have butted heads over whether Blue Is The Warmest Colour is good representation or not as the film gives into to the ‘woman cheating on her girlfriend with a man’ trope and the 10-minute long sex scene between the two leads has also been labelled as ‘exploitation’ by some.

So it remains to be seen if Would You Still Love Me If…, will do a better job with its lesbian couple despite its inspiration, but previews begin on September 26 so we should have a clearer picture then.