Watch: First International Trailer For Cannes Palme d’Or Winner ‘Blue Is The Warmest Color’

While one of the year’s most talked films won’t be under consideration for a foreign language Oscar due to the Academy’s rather arbitrary rules, that doesn’t take anything away from Abdellatif Kechiche‘s epic love story “Blue Is The Warmest Color” (aka “La Vie Adele – Chapters 1 & 2“). With an upcoming North American debut primed for the Toronto International Film Festival to be followed by a fall release, this one will be seen by many as a contender for year-end Best Of lists and the first international trailer has just arrived for the movie.

There are no English subtitles for this one but even if your French isn’t so hot, you can still get a sense of the powerful drama that unspools in the film that runs nearly three hours long. A movie already slated as one of The Best Films Of The Year…So Far, it stars Léa Seydoux and Adele Exarchopolous (who shared the Palme d’Or with the director, a Cannes first) and chronicles in observant detail, a relationship from the giddy beginnings through to the difficult end, with all the peaks and valleys in between. And yes, that also means a much talked about graphic sex scene. But as we wrote in our mid-year recap: ” the central relationship may be same-sex, but the film is profoundly wise about how it feels and what it means for your sense of self to be in love, no matter who the object of your affections. It gives it a universality far beyond any reductive categorization.”

Anyway, check it out below. In case you wonder after you’ve watched it, the song in the trailer is “I Follow Rivers” by Lykke Li (which was also used in a remixed fashion in last year’s “Rust & Bone”). You might also want to have a look at our Cannes rave for the film. “Blue Is The Warmest Color” opens on October 25th. Update: Trailer with English subs added below. [Allocine]