Here’s a piece of advice for Abdellatif Kechiche: let it go. While he was certainly right to defend himself after accusations first surfaced from his “Blue Is The Warmest Color” stars Lea Seydoux and (to a much lesser degree) Adele Exarchopoulos, in the weeks since, it seems to be mostly his voice we’ve been hearing. From declaring the movie shouldn’t be released to changing his mind and entertaining the notions of a sequel, Kechiche hasn’t seen a press opportunity he couldn’t seize upon. He’s now unloaded his biggest statement yet.
In a long, sometimes rambling, kind of paranoid open letter to Rue89 (translated by THR), he has taken considerable space—when not griping about the French film industry and vast press conspiracy to take him down (really)—to dig into Seydoux. Calling her an “arrogant, spoiled child,” he continues to be hurt and vexed by the actress’s about face from her seeming happiness at Cannes following the Palme d’Or win for the film, and her later, much more bitter comments about the process.
“Miss Seydoux, who after having repeatedly thanking me publicly and privately and having wept in my arms at Cannes for allowing her to take on this noble role … has, against all odds and all personal coherence, radically changed her attitude towards me,” the director wrote. “Thus after having been celebrated and glorified thanks to the Palme d’Or won by ‘Blue is the Warmest Color,’ she started to drag me through the mud with lies and exaggerations.”
Adding that her words are “slanderous,” Seydoux might be well advised to lawyer up as Kechiche warns, “I will come back. It is for her to explain in court.”
All this to say, as much as Kechiche tries to clear the air that he’s a regular dude who’s been thrown under the bus as he continues to swing out, the more the stories of him being an unpredictable bully on set seem to make sense.
