Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno

Kechiche intuitively knows how to film bodies and the souls that drive them. It's an organic cinema, distilled in the most nostalic and melancholic barrel. We're all trapped on that beach, surrounded by love on a warm summer afternoon.

Always.

Amin quits his Paris medical school and returns to his seaside home town, intent on pursuing his twin interests of photography and writing sci-fi scrips. He quickly discovers that his womanising brother Tony (Salim Kechiouche, more famous to British audiences for such gay-friendly fare as 'Grande École' and 'Le Clan') is having an affair with his pultridudinous childhood friend Ophélie. Amin and Tony visit the beach, where they meet two tourists, Charlotte and Céline. Charlotte quickly falls for Tony's swarthy charms, and Céline initially seems interested in Amin - before showing equal interest in his humorous friend Joe and, indeed, in Ophélie.

On paper, this soapy storyline looks as if it could be dealt with relatively quickly. Director/co-writer Abdellatif Kechiche, however, spins it out to a squirm-inducing 181 minutes. He does this mainly by lengthening scenes way beyond their ability to hold the viewer's attention: for example, a nightclub sequence which adds nothing to the development of either plot or character lasts, by my reckoning, at least quarter of an hour but could have finished in half that time; and to establish that Ophélie works on a goat farm all that was needed was for her to say "I've got to get to the goat farm"; instead we're treated to five minutes of her herding the creatures into a barn.

Kechiche frequently has his actors talking over one another, which may be an accurate mirror of real-life conversation, but makes it difficult for the viewer to keep track of who is saying what, particularly when reading sub-titles. He also often places his actors in front of the sun, casting them into shadow and searing the eyeballs of his audience.

This film is sub-titled 'Canto Uno', which suggests one or more sequels. Even though the characters are largely likeable, and there is comfort in the predictability of the story, unless those sequels benefit from much tighter editing than did this, I won't be going anywhere near them.

In fact Abdellatif Kechiche dreams of making a series. The length of his films is justified by his desire to make a documentary on the social engineering between these characters on the Mediterranean coast who spend their time talking to say nothing. Each scene is treated as a piece of bravura, as a montage sequence with a multitude of details and interactions between characters who have nothing to say to each other. That is to say, Kechiche's camera wants to be at the center of the people, at the center of their interactions, like a documentary, to reflect a reality, which is very positive here, and the film is extremely brilliant in terms of staging, or rather capturing the scenes. But each of these montage sequences would have been treated in a very different way by many filmmakers with multiple ellipses or not shown at all.

Moreover, Abdellatif Kechiche's other passion is to show women's bodies, especially their asses and breasts. It is not unpleasant, because the film is very naturalistic on this subject. It must be admitted that these characters are not exciting and that is the limit of the film. Stretching out these character interactions over 180 minutes would have been much better as a series in, say, twenty-minute modules, with each scene lasting twenty minutes; and the series format would add even more.

It's brilliant in terms of direction. But boring on the diegetic level. The evolutions of the main character touch us weakly.

Basically, lots of flesh. Scandalous, considering the action takes places in a muslim country, but the waves of visiting tourists makes flirt & nudity an everyday business. Amin's gaze is of an non-judgmental observer, reluctunt to engage. Love has little to do with the place, except for the lambs maybe - a cliche for innocence. Op-ending, the movie (hardly a story) lacks a morale; sometimes life is such.

This is a film that's hard to review; it is technically well done, but once in a while you wonder why you are watching what you're watching.

The film offers many ingredients of a good coming-of-age story: realistic characters, realistic character developments, realistic scenarios, realistic dialogues. Its perspective is not moralistic; It neither blames nor encourages any of its characters' different approaches to sex and life.

The problem, however, is that if you cut one hour of the movie out, it wouldn't lose any significance. Indeed, a lot of the film is plain gazing at the plump bodies of women, but the thing is that the gazed body parts do not add anything to the film. One could argue that the long sex scene in La Vie d'Adele gave the viewer an opportunity to get acquainted with the characters since the way a person has sex also tells a lot about them. The same argument sadly cannot be given in this film. Hence, you have a three hour long movie instead of two. Nonetheless, the longevity of the film does not mean that the film is stretched out. Three hours pass by in a relatively quick fashion (especially if you like women).

I just hope women and the animals in the movie did not have to endure shootings that they didn't particularly enjoy, considering Léa Seydoux's and Adele Exarchopoulos's harsh comments on the director at the time.