Times critic Justin Chang is filing regular dispatches from the 72nd Cannes Film Festival in France. Here's his take on what he calls 'the worst movie I've seen' at the festival.
regular dispatchesThe first words in “Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo,” the longest and by no small margin the worst movie I’ve seen at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, are “Look at me.”The words are spoken by a young man named Amin to the very beautiful, very naked woman he’s photographing on a beach in the South of France. After a few minutes spent focusing on her face, the movie camera drops down to take in a fuller view of her body, lingering appreciatively on her bare buttocks.
But you can do neither of those things, because this is the latest movie from the French-Tunisian director Abdellatif Kechiche, and nothing about it — neither the “Look at me” nor the aggressive butt-cam — is accidental. His critics and admirers alike will probably guess from those opening moments what they’re in for: an act of retaliation, the work of an embattled, controversy-seeking filmmaker who has decided to troll his audience.
Even those who slammed “Blue Is the Warmest Color” as a particularly toxic example of the male gaze at work had to concede that the movie was more than the sum of its sex scenes. It was a credible and moving love story, for one, built on two raw, enveloping performances — especially from Exarchopoulos, who disappeared into the role of a young woman growing up, emotionally and intellectually, before our eyes.
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. After an opening 30 minutes or so eavesdropping on the characters as they splash, chat and eat on a beach, the movie shifts to later that evening at a neon-drenched nightclub, where they spend hours dancing, flirting and making out.
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