Photo: QUAT’SOUS FILMS
A film that premiered at theCannes Film Festivalthis week reportedly caused outrage and prompted walkouts due to its lengthy and graphic sexual content.
According toIndieWire,Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo,a nearly four-hour film fromBlue Is the Warmest Colordirector Abdellatif Kechiche, contains one long scene of what appears to be un-simulated oral sex between a man and a woman and also focuses heavily on women’s bottoms.
Intermezzois the sequel to Kechiche’s 2017 movieMektoub, My Love: Canto Uno; both movies are based on the French novel “La Blessure, la vraie.”
Social media reactions from audience members at the screening ofIntermezzodescribed the film as “vapid” and called it out for “objectification and voyeurism.” Some admitted to walking out of the film due to its content.
“I just walked out ofMektoub My Love: Intermezzo,” another audience membersaid. “The most lacivicious leery trash I’ve seen. Eurgh! Talk about objectification and voyeurism.”
Film critic Joshua RothkopfwrotethatIntermezzocontained “endless vapid scenes of flirting and dancing in bars,” andIndieWirecritic David Ehrlichnotedthat “60% of the movie is close-ups of butts.”
Director Abdellatif Kechiche.JULIEN WARNAND/REX
The director responded to the criticism during the Cannes press conference for the film,saying, “The most important thing for me and this is what I want to say right away, was to celebrate life, love, desire, breath, music, the body. I wanted to try a cinematographic experience that would be as free as possible.”
Kechiche is best known for his 2013 movieBlue Is the Warmest Color, which contained similar graphic depictions of sex and won the prestigious Palme d’Or prize at that year’s Cannes.
This isn’t the first time audience members have walked out of a Cannes showing.
At 2018’s festival, Lars von Trier’s serial killer filmThe House That Jack Builtcause similar ire due to its graphic depictions of violence against women.
“I’ve never seen anything like this at a film festival,”Varietyreporter Ramin Setoodehwroteon Twitter at the time. “More than 100 people have walked out of Lars von Trier’sThe House That Jack Built, which depicts the mutilation of women and children. ‘It’s disgusting,’ one woman said on her way out.”
source: people.com
