Review "Mektoub My Love: Canto Uno" by Abdelatif Kechiche: a beautiful frustrating film.

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Mektoub My Love: Canto Uno is a work like no other. New film from a media director, known for his conflicts and controversies. But almost invisible film until now, more or less no one had really heard of it. Mektoub My Love is best known for its financing difficulties, being the film for which Kechiche sold his Palme d'Or, and being a film with so many footage shot that it had to be cut into two or even three parts. But other than that, few people know what the film is about. And it's time to do justice to Abdelatif Kechiche's new feature film, long, imperfect, frustrating but endearing.

We're not going to lie, we were veryscared for the new film by the author of La Vie d'Adèle. The opening scene is a sex scene bordering on the ridiculous. It's hard not to laugh in front of it. But it may be a way to chase the ghost of Adele once and for all, known for her sex scenes more than explicit. A way to give the audience what they expected from the beginning, to botch it and then move on. Then as the film evolves, we end up "getting into it", despite scenes not always well mastered and boring, accompanied by moments touched by grace and from which it is impossible to get off. 

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Mektoub is a film that manages to overcome its condition of a bastard-film, too long and too short at the same time. At times, Kechiche manages to capture solar moments, carried by the grace and madness of the bodies, especially during the festive scenes. He succeeds in painting precisely youth, the game of seduction inherent in his innocence and his taste for discovery through experience. One can criticize the fact of fixing the forms of these (young) actresses. We can reply that it is only a question of representing the game of observation that is done between the characters. Something we all actually do, Kechiche just showing it. And above all, he manages to represent it in the most truthful way possible. Few filmmakers have managed to film youth in such a realistic way. And this is thanks to a range of perfect actors. However, the story of the film is based more or less on an abysmal scriptwriting void, which can be summarized as follows: "it's young people who spend the summer together and try to seduce each other". Void that manages to be saved by the beauty of some scenes and, once again, an absolutely perfect cast. 

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Still , the film is far too long. And is very unbalanced. Kechiche uses the Terrence Malick method here. Film as much as possible (without filming randomly either) and hope to arrange everything in the editing. A method that worked perfectly with La Vie d'Adèle but is much less successful at Mektoub. To the point that Kechiche has enough to make not two, but three films. And it feels. The filmmaker is obviously looking to make his Lord of the Rings with a trilogy of 3-hour films, but we may end up with films suffering from the symptom of the Hobbit. Very long starts and films that stop right when the film manages to take away its viewer. As it stands, it's hard to judge Mektoub My Love for good. It is really only a draft of a longer and more imposing work. 

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Mektoub My Love: Canto Uno is therefore an imperfect film. A film that has its place perfectly in Kechiche's filmography (as evidenced by the presence of Hafsia Herzi), in line with La Vie d'Adèle. The director continues to film youth and his passions, with less brilliance than in these previous films. Still, Abdellatif Kechiche has kept his bet, and delivers a fragile but beautiful and innocent film like a lamb. 

 

Trailer Mektoub My Love, Canto Uno :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQlzyOpTNeI