Director Abdellatif Kechiche and the cast of the movie attending the photocall of Mektoub My Love Intermezzo during the 72nd Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France Director Abdellatif Kechiche and the cast of the movie attending the photocall of Mektoub My Love Intermezzo during the 72nd Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France A FILM BY by one of France’s top directors was heavily criticised at the Cannes film festival today, with critics focusing on the way it depicts its female stars.
The 58-year-old director later defended Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo at a press conference where he said it was an attempt to “create the most free cinema experience possible”, praising his actors for having “fearlessly crossed boundaries” for him. The movie was little more than “three-hours-plus of jiggling female butts”, said critic Boyd van Hoeij writing in The Hollywood Reporter.MEKTOUB MY LOVE: INTERMEZZO: the director of Blue Is the Warmest Color made a 4-hour movie about butts. it's the same length as Lawrence of Arabia, and literally 60% of the movie is close-ups of butts.
Playing out in something close to real time over a single afternoon and evening, Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo is a numbingly obtuse experience, a feat of maddeningly indulgent non-storytelling hiding behind a symphony of bared midriffs and jiggling derrières. New Zealand producer Patricia Hetherington walked out of the film, calling it “the most lascivious leery trash I’ve seen. Eurgh!”