Venice Film Festival 2017

[Chris Knipp]

Abdelatif Kechiche's latest. Controversy. Disappointment. Lush sensuality.



MEKTOUB MY LOVE: CANTO UNO -review by Guy Lodge for Variety: "Abdellatif Kechiche returns with another heady, alluring sensory epic, but it lacks the narrative and emotional heft of his best work." "Another gorgeous three-hour study of young, attractively housed hearts in often turbulent motion, 'Mektoub' is a frequently seductive sensory epic of equivalent ambition, yet despite its woozily pleasurable set pieces, the fraught emotions binding them are less urgent, and the perspective of its protagonist far less immediate." It relates most not to Vie d'Adèle but Secret of the Grain, with a similar setting, new characters. Lodge feels it could use another run through the editing suite, not to cut the 3-hour length, but to improve the rhythm. Others feel this shows Kechiche "sees women only as sex objects" - shows too much of a "masturbatory" "Male gaze." Oops. It concerns a young screenwriter of Arab extraction who leaves Paris for his Mediterranean hometown for a summer of beaches and bars. As in Adèle there are graphic sex scenes. Offensive to some or not, anyone who's followed Kechiche will want to savor this one as well. Kechiche's previous feature, La vie d'Adèle, AKA Blue Is the Warmest Color four years ago at Cannes won the Palme d'Or, awarded unanimously both to him and his two lead actresses, an unprecedented move.