When I watched Celine Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, the film came around like a warm hug reassuring me that women can be shown in their real, unguarded state without their underarms being shaven, bleached and that the side hugs can take time to ease in. The detection gets easier when you use another film dealing with the same theme as a point of reference. It is out and out aestheticised, which makes it difficult to question ‘Blue is the Warmest Colour’s problematics. The male gaze here as I said is not overwhelming or outrightly predatory, but it is there, in varying degrees of intrusion. The indulgent camerawork of ‘Blue is the Warmest Colour’ sure does bring a sense of privy into the girl’s life in all its unguarded glory, but when you shoot the same girl from behind as she lies on her chest writing a journal, her back accentuating from inside her track pants, or when she is shown asleep with her mouth slight apart, you become wary of whether this privy crosses the precarious threshold into voyeurism. The close-up shots are successful and even a necessary attempt at engaging us with the characters on an intimate level- to empathize with their breakdowns, their burst of happiness, pleasure, and joy. The film was made by a man and thereafter, you cannot unsee the “male gaze” that guides you through the entire length of the film.įrom an artistic point of view, the cinematography of ‘Blue is the Warmest Colour’ is visually pleasing, with warm-colored tones, overwhelming close-up shots, and has long sequences of its characters going about their ways in their personal space. As I finally got around to watch the film, it still very much appealed to me but with the only difference – I had to Google its director and infer what I’d already guessed. The trailer and the few shorts clips of the film that did rounds on social media since its early days of release appealed to me in every way. I had been meaning to watch “Blue is the Warmest Colour” for the longest time. It is out and out aestheticised, which makes it difficult to question ‘Blue is the Warmest Colour’s problematics.Īlso read: Film Review: Unfreedom - Family, Violence And The Male Gaze “Blue is the Warmest Colour” is one such film. The male gaze here as I said is not overwhelming or outrightly predatory, but it is there, in varying degrees of intrusion. Its presence is difficult to pick on but you just have the sense of it at the back of your head. The male gaze in some films may not be outrightly predatory and offensive. “Blue is the Warmest Colour” is one such film.
The male gaze often objectifies the female entity where they are sometimes unnecessarily sexualised or incorrectly depicted or simply relegated to the margins.īut the male gaze in some films may not be outrightly predatory and offensive. The male gaze basically scrutinises how women are looked at, in an artistic space created by a man. This oft-quoted line of John Berger from his book “Ways of Seeing” states the crux of the idea of “male gaze”.