On a purely surface level, you can draw comparisons between Céline Sciamma’s recent award-winning Cannes film “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” and the Palme d’Or winning film “Blue is the Warmest Color” from filmmaker Abdellatif Kechiche. Both films, though very different in execution, follow a passionate love story between two women. However, for many film fans, that’s the beginning, middle, and end of the similarities, as Sciamma and Kechiche seemingly approach the subject from two completely different points of view.

Continue reading Céline Sciamma Appreciates Abdellatif Kechiche’s “Male Gaze” & Defends Sex Scenes In ‘Blue Is The Warmest Color’ at The Playlist.

It consumed, delighted, and maddened many of us, even from afar, but the 2019 Cannes Film Festival is finally done. South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-Ho‘s social satire “Parasite” won the coveted Palme d’Or prize (a first for South Korea), and Mati Diop’s “Atlantique,” won the runner-up Grand Prix prize, becoming the first Black female director to win a Cannes prize (after 72 years, she was also somehow the first Black female director in competition).

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Filmmaker Abdellatif Kechiche is no stranger to critical acclaim…and controversy. The director’s career has been consistently appreciated by film fans and critics alike, earning him numerous awards, including the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2013. But throughout his almost 20-year career, Kechiche has also seen disparaging reports about his on-set and off-set activities. And so it shouldn’t be any surprise that the filmmaker’s latest work, “Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo,” which premiered at this year’s Cannes, now finds itself with yet another controversy for Kechiche.

Continue reading ‘Blue Is The Warmest Colour’ Director Accused Of Plying Actors With Alcohol Until They Performed Unsimulated Sex In New Cannes Film at The Playlist.

The female ass is the main character of “Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo,” and that’s not an exaggeration. After auctioning off the Palme d’Or statuette he won for “Blue Is the Warmest Color” in order to finance this film, director Abdellatif Kechiche returns with —  judging by its title — the second installment in a godforsaken trilogy. The rumors are true: “Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo” clocks in at around four hours, each hour more excruciatingly mind-numbing than the last.

Continue reading ‘Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo’: Abdellatif Kechiche’s Torturous, Four-Hour Sequel Is the Butt of the Joke [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.

Is horror making its way to the Cannes Film Festival this year? Granted, for many of these films they exist only as a logline and one official image, but prestige horror is seemingly destined to make its mark on the usually sunny usually Croisette. Then again, rain is in the forecast.

READ MORE: the 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2019 

There are a number of interesting trends this year at the French event, including a trio of new American filmmakers in the Un Certain Regard sidebar, semi-old school Hollywood star power (Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sylvester Stallone), a slight increase in female directors in competition (a big ol’ four of them), and, as always, filmmakers the festival simply can’t say no too (Pedro Almodóvar, Xavier Dolan, Ken Loach, the Dardennes, etc.).

Continue reading 2019 Cannes Film Festival: The 21 Most Anticipated Movies at The Playlist.

Faced with criticisms from some corners about the gaze employed on his young leads in “Blue Is The Warmest Color,” director Abdellatif Kechiche doubles down with his new film “Mektoub My Love: Canto Uno.” In fact, the trailer forgoes any dialogue and lets the camera dance around the characters who spend plenty of time making out and frolicking in their swimsuits.

Featuring a cast of mostly unknowns (Shaïn Boumedine, Ophélie Bau, Salim Kechiouche, Lou Luttiau, Alexia Chardard and Hafsia Herzi), the story follows a young screenwriter faced with a difficult choice between his lover and his career.

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During the scintillating opening moments of “Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno” a young man peers through a window at a couple having gorgeous, abandoned sex, described in tactile, fleshy images of the beautiful young woman’s tousled hair, panting mouth, fuzzy pudenda, dimpled thighs and sweet folds of puppyish flab. It’s an extraordinarily real, sexy sex scene, immediately reminding us of the thrillingly immersive filmmaking of which Abdellatif Kechiche is capable.

Continue reading Abdellatif Kechiche’s ‘Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno’ [Venice Review] at The Playlist.

Get ready, strap in, put your helmet on. Or in the case of Playlist writers, pack your snacks, remember to hydrate and try and get some sleep because the fall film festival season is about to kick off this week and the madness won’t stop anytime soon. We’ve got Telluride also coming this weekend, and the Toronto International Film Festival lands next week, but it starts as it always does on the Lido on Wednesday with the Venice Film Festival.

Continue reading Venice Film Festival: 13 Must-See Movies at The Playlist.

Four years have now passed since director Abdellatif Kechiche brought his explicit, emotionally raw “Blue Is The Warmest Color” to the Cannes Film Festival. Many prognosticators had him pegged to return to the Croisette this year with his new film “Mektoub Is Mektoub” (now titled “Mektoub, My Love“) but as we learned just a couple of months ago, the film has mutated. 

Continue reading ‘Blue Is The Warmest Color’ Director Abdellatif Kechiche Auctioning Off Palme d’Or To Finish ‘Mektoub, My Love’ at The Playlist.