The Blue Caftan

5/15/2023

"Halim" (Saleh Bakri) lives with his ailing wife "Mina" (Lubna Azabal) and together they run a small tailoring business. Now he is a master craftsman, everything is measured, cut and stitched by hand - a fairly labour intensive and time consuming process. To help meet the demands of his impatient customers, he has acquired an handsome apprentice "Youssef" (Ayoub Missioui) who takes a keen interest in his work and demonstrates an aptitude that is increasingly appreciated by "Halim". What's also fairly obvious is that both men are attracted to each other and we now embark on a rather delicate triangle in which the two men - entirely platonically - develop their relationship under the watchful gaze of his wife whom we suspect suspects, but... It's a very gently paced film this, allowing the t

3/5/2024

Very mediocre and not a step-up from Meryam Touzani's first feature which was also an okay film. The relationship between the three main characters wasn't dynamic or memorable. The moments when the film was trying to go deep with the relationship of the characters or their past didn't bring us closer to the characters. And I have to say that Loubna Azabal and Saleh Bakri Moroccan dialect isn't compelling and it was a barrier between us - the audience - and the characters.