Review of The Secret of the Grain

Absolutely one of the worst films I've ever seen and one of the worst films ever made. Couscous is an amateur hack job in every conceivable aspect, and I'm quite convinced that I know more about film-making than does Abdel Kechiche, the mooncalf who dreamed up this agonizing-to-watch attempt to create meaning out of a bad script, bad actors, and an utterly idiotic concept. The film's publicity brags that it's the "best French film of the year"; the French film industry should sue Kechiche for even suggesting such a thing. Couscous isn't slow; it's the Chinese water torture, it's root canal without anesthesia, and the film's endless high-volume conversations in which characters talk simultaneously (so you can't understand a flipping thing) are, in themselves, beyond enervating. The protracted sequences of belly-dancing (sordid and embarrassing), of people sitting in a restaurant waiting to be served, and of Habib Boufares running and running and running and running through the streets drag on for a quarter of an hour. There's not one single morsel left to suck out of them—not visual appeal, not symbolic meaning, not plot advancement. Literally nothing. Kechiche sticks his camera on a tripod and goes out for lunch. When he comes back, it's still filming, and you get to watch the entire mess. This guy needs to be banned for life from making films.