You don’t know a thing about me

Over the weekend I saw “Blue Is the Warmest Colour.” You may have heard it was awarded the Palme d’Or this summer at Cannes. You may have also heard it had an exceptionally long and excessively graphic love sex scene between two women, which is why it was slapped with an NC-17 rating.

The following by no means is a movie review. It’s more of a public service announcement – for heterosexuals:

Dear straight people,

As you may have heard, there is a provocative and award-winning lesbian movie making its rounds in art houses across America. You, being progressive and supportive heteros with lots of gay friends, will want to go out and see this film. And that’s okay. I’m all about supporting your independent theater. However, before you go, please understand that you don’t have to like this movie. As a matter of fact you can “come out” of the theater feeling like you just tossed $12 in the trash and cursing the day the director was born.

Seriously. This movie will make you uncomfortable and will not make much logical sense (it’s French). However, it’s not because of the theme. It’s because the movie was terrible, choppy and strange. And it’s okay not to like it. Lots of gay people didn’t like it either.

You may think that I’m overreacting. After all, this film was awarded the most coveted prize at the world’s most prestigious film festival. But that’s precisely why I’m writing to you today.

You see, I’m pretty sure the group of straight jurors at Cannes were too afraid to say that the movie was horrible not to sound bigoted. As a matter of fact the guilt of not liking this movie was so apparent that the jury awarded the prize to the director and the movie’s two leading actresses, which is unprecedented at Cannes.

This reminds me of a coworker that for no reason or doing inspired so much anger and hate in me that I would periodically buy her lunch and gifts to sooth my guilt. Maybe that’s not the same thing. But that over-showering of prizes seems a bit too much for a poorly-adapted, three-hour French movie.

There are very many things I didn’t like about the movie, which I’ve outlined below. Don’t worry, they won’t spoil the plot, as there is none. Did I mention it’s a French movie?

• The director is obsessed with butts. I think he is the poster child for Freud’s anal stage.
• There was nothing butch about the butch.
• Blue hair is so edgy, said no one in France in this millennium.
• Spaghetti.
• Adele should really close her mouth.
• The lesbian artist only paints lesbians.
• The few tender moments were ruined with nonsense.
• And, of course, there’s the infamous scene, which brings up a new set of things that really irk me:

1. Do they even like each other?
2. Is there a laptop off camera that is beaming them into Chat Roulette?
3. I appreciate the length of the scene, I do. Our process takes a long time. But it’s a process. This is a highlight reel of all of the positions in the lesbian Kama Sutra.
4. Where is the nervous laughter? Where are the tears? This is Adele’s first time with a woman and she’s as stoic as Eleanor Roosevelt.
5. Random ass slapping, salad tossing and/or ass play in general doesn’t happen on the first time or the first date or, for many women, EVER.

For full-disclosure, I found myself tearing up three times during the movie. There were some universal experiences that happen to the young that fall in love, especially with someone of their same gender. And the reason that comes through the film is because of Julie Maroh, the woman who wrote the graphic novel “Blue Angel,” which was the inspiration for the movie.

And for even more disclosure, I find that there are very few movies and T.V. shows that really nail it (pun intended). I find that movies and television shows directed and/or written by women come close (pun intended). Jamie Babbit, Rose Troche and Kimberly Pierce understand me. They know that I have insanely high standards, but I also have an insanely low threshold for being turned on by two women on screen. Unfortunately, Kechiche missed the (g)spot.