User reviews

"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 three strong performances from these on-form character actors to develop slowly and engagingly and though the underpinning issues of sexuality in a country that is still largely unwelcoming is part of the theme, it is not a greater a part than the observation of the couple's happy marriage nor of the creative beauty of the men's skills at creating garments of delicacy and fineness. It's a film about discovery and family and I found it worked really quite well as we navigate a myriad of challenges towards the conclusion that, like the rest of this story, is anything but simple. It's quite observational in nature, so don't expect things to rattle along - they don't, but it draws together threads of lives and choices in as intricate a fashion as any of his creations and is really well worth a watch.

A sensitively drawn chamber piece for the three actors. Lubna Azabal especially delivers a finely crafted performance encompassing the breadth of human emotions. Wonderful.

A convenience, an arrangement but with love, like the hand that nestles firmly within glove, a partnership, a pairing, with the coalition fearing, that an influence might thrust down from above; as events are taken out of their control, a condition leaving one without parole, a fight that can't be won, a world that's gradually undone, a price to pay, with the heaviest of tolls; all performed with so much elegance and grace, as two people braid, entwine, surround, embrace, whose devotion and whose caring, elevate just what is sharing, with respect, regard and reverence their embrace.

It's a beautiful film, with beautiful performances from beautiful people.

I saw this movie as a part of the Gothenburg Film Festival this year, 2023.

A story about a man and his wife, and the new apprentice, in their sewing business. It's about craftsmanship and love, in so many ways. It's about leaning on each other and trusting one another.

For me this was a really beautiful and moving movie. So much love, caring and feelings between the beautiful characters. The story is moving and gives hope and understanding for what they all go thru - and cannot control. Really high quality acting and story telling that's just amazing to see and made us both laugh and cry. And the craftsmanship that is shown is very fascinating. Beautiful caftans, especially the blue one.

Perhaps the biggest question I have in connection with this film is, "Why hasn't it received far more recognition than it has?" This positively beautiful picture - winner of the Un Certain Regard FIPRESCI Prize at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival - should have received far wider attention than it has in this year's awards competitions, including the Oscars. Writer-director Maryam Touzani's second feature outing tells the tender, touching story of the middle-aged husband and wife owners of a traditional Moroccan caftan shop who take on a handsome young apprentice to help with their backlog of orders, a decision with ramifications that extend beyond the workplace, including those of an amorous nature. This gorgeously filmed, sensitively presented tale succeeds on so many levels that it's difficult to list them all - a superbly nuanced screenplay, a beautiful background score, gorgeous costuming and exquisite cinematography, to name just a few. It also brilliantly evokes a variety of moods, from romantic to loving to sensual to erotic, all without ever becoming obvious, excessive or tawdry (though don't be surprised if it opens up the water works at times, so keep the hankies within reach). Then there are the stellar performances of the three principals, all masterfully handled by Lubna Azabal, Saleh Bakri and newcomer Ayoub Missioui. Indeed, how this one got so egregiously overlooked truly escapes me, and I sincerely wish it had been released in time for me to include it on my list of the year's best releases. It should have rightfully claimed nominations for best foreign language/international film in a number of competitions, given its far superior attributes compared to many of the underwhelming releases that somehow managed to land awards or nominations. It's rare these days when a film has just about everything going for it, but "The Blue Caftan" certainly succeeds at this and is definitely well worth the viewing time.

All three actors are unimpeachable and creator, Touzani, gathered a sensitivity and grace in this touching work, where he shows a renunciation of some out of benevolence towards others, towards whom there is no physical, but spiritual love. The point is that we have a life which we can share only with a small number of people, who can share theirs with us, but if we support and help each others. Sexual orientation in those situations certainly isn't a priority. Beautiful and very emotional script can't waste a line and it oozes care from almost every minute. Essentially, "The Blue Caftan" isn't LGBTQ movie, but about a pure love between totally different characters, in every way.

As a Belgian I feel proud to have an actrice as Lubna Azabal, one the best actrices in the international movie world. I will never forget the movie 'Incendies', for me still one of the best movies of this century, where she was also the leading actrice.

And this time again, Lubna and the other two leading actors were fantastic in their roles. The script is beautiful and very emotional. And the love and tenderness between the three very different characters is pure and very profound.

Le Bleu du Caftan puts all national feelings and international religions aside. It's a timeless story. Director Maryam Touzani has a very bright future ahead, what an achievement.

I fell in love with the tenderness and delicate sensuality of 'Le bleu du caftan'. Rarely does a movie maker so poetically depict the many facets of sincere love and sorrow. Surrounded by colourful fabrics and brilliant threads all viewers could admire the pure essence of touch, intimacy and devotion, but also the cutting pain of loss and grief.

Everyone in the movie hall was very quiet and in full admiration of this wonderful movie, and some had to reach for their handkerchiefs.

So, go to the cinema and be witness of a true and realistic masterpiece.

It probably helps to understand this film if you know something about Moroccan and/or Muslim culture. Morocco is the most liberal of the Muslim countries, but we still get an idea of the repression when early on in the film the husband and wife are hassled by the police on a "routine inspection." The police want to know if they are married. When the husband says yes, the police want to see their marriage license. It goes on. This childless husband and wife, who seem to be around 40 years old) have a shop where they produce expensive, handmade clothing for upper-class Moroccan ladies. The man is an artist at what he does, especially his work with gold filagree. (Over the course of the movie, the man will create his masterpiece, the title garment.) The wife is rather feisty for that society, which may be the reason they were stopped by the police. Earlier that evening on their way home from another function, she asked her husband if they could drop into a café for a cup of mint tea. He agreed, albeit with a subtle reluctance. In general, cafes in the Muslim world are all-male affairs. Although Morocco is more liberal, it's still somewhat rare that a woman sets foot in one, and then only in the company of her husband. While she's there, she also (somewhat surreptitiously) smokes her husband's pipe. It was on their way home from the café that the police stopped them. Was there a connection? Who knows? That's life in modern Morocco. The husband seems to be very indulgent with his wife, but also somewhat aloof. For medical reasons, they need money and therefore need to produce more goods at work. In order to do so, they take on a young man as an apprentice. An unspoken, but palpable, affection arises between the men. The wife begins to perceive the young man as a threat. Mind you, none of this is ever said. It's all conveyed through looks, attitudes, and body-language. Homosexuality is a crime in Islam. (In Saudi Arabia, the penalty is beheading. It's probably not that severe in Morocco, but I would guess jail time at the least.) There are several scenes that take place in a hammam (public bath house where there is no total nudity) which imply that the husband seeks sexual gratification there. But the story is really about the husband and wife and the great love that they have for each other.

This is a subtle and poetic film in which the three principal actors are all excellent. Ayoub Missioui as the apprentice is able to convey youthful passion very subtly and sensitively. Saleh Bakri as the husband is remarkable in his ability to seem completely masculine while sewing or admiring his apprentice. His performance is brilliant underplaying. Lubna Azabal as the wife has the script's flashiest role, and she certainly rises to the occasion. These three performances are among the year's best. The film, however, is slow-moving and requires patience on the part of the audience. I'm not so sure that it's the pace that seems slow, or that all the scenes have the same rhythm. There are no really big moments. Every moment is given equal weight, which tends to "flatten out" the script. I did not like the cinematography. The scenes all seemed to start blurry and then adjust to a sharper image. The lighting was too dark much of the time, too. Despite these reservations, I admired this film and would recommend it to those who like art films and foreign movies.

Where to begin? Defying all the taboos and presenting a queer love story in arabic cinema, a pure presentation of love at its best. Beautifully filmed and edited in a magnificent and elegant craft. Career defying performance by the film leads! Devastating and yet beautiful story/ fairytale if i dare say so.

Intimate, personal, small yet larger than life film where the vulnerability of its characters made me feel i was an intruder in their presence ears dropping on their story from behind the curtain. Feeling their emotions and sharing their experiences Thanks to the beautiful work of its director. I wish for the whole world to watch this film because it is exactly why I love cinema! This film have the power to change lives!

I really did want to like this Moroccan drama, and indeed, it is very beautifully and carefully executed, but I did find it just a bit too languid and nuanced for its own good, perhaps also finally just a little too sad and poignant, but it lingers in the mind, and like the precision snd skill of the kaftan maker, struggling with his sexuality and the conflicts of the society he is in, it does create a lasting effect. Not only a touching drama, but it highlights some very human themes and struggles.

Of course, a film from a Muslim country with themes on homosexuality and the struggles of individuals in a repressed society is a brave but necessary thing, and for that the makers should be congratulated. Beautifully crafted by all concerned.

A love story unlike any other. The love of craft & beauty, love of another person, the romantic love of two people at once, love of life itself & the love for the simplest things in life that give life meaning.

It is set in an independant caftan store in a small town in Morocco where the husband & wife owner craft hand stitched, quality caftans against the backdrop of a modernising trade that uses machinery. Customers are demanding, often impatient & the craft of hand made caftans is slowly losing to quickly made caftans via sewing machines.

You appreciate the value of craftsmanship, passion & the process involved through the intimate filming & sheer amount of time it takes to hand stitch a caftan.

The husband is secretly gay & starts to develop feelings for the new apprentice. His wife, who he dearly loves likely knows but loves him for who he is. This exploration of sexuality & free expression in the small town setting is heart wrenching as is the way the movie depicts the husbands love for his increasingly sick wife.

It makes you think about what love really is. With the sick wife facing her mortality, she still holds on to her sense of duty while making the most of the simplest things in life.

The apprentice adds an interesting dynamic & shows the loyalty of the husband when his wife truly needs him despite him also being sexually interested in men.

The music, setting, foods, drinks, hamams & clothing give an intimate insight in to small town Moroccan life. The creation & eventual destination of the Blue Caftan is a metaphor for how we might choose to make decisions in life based on love, rather than just money.

A powerful, philosophical, tender & heartwrenching movie that makes you feel. Well done!

This is a very slow moving film in which everyone speaks in whispered voices. There is sparse dialog, a lot of staring at one another and lots of shots of gold embroidery thread being sewn on to caftans. The theme is one of different types of love, but the film is so predictable, that even the end comes as no surprise. Many of the scenes are irrelevant and the slow, dream like scenes becoming boring after a while. If there's a story to be told, get on with the business of telling it! Scene after scene where very little happens isn't the way to do that. The acting is average for the culture but the constant whispering becomes old very quickly.

I went see this movie 1 week ago and I'm totally amazed of the movie. The story is beautiful and the actors fantastic and I'm stunned how they delivered it so well and with such brilliance. The director is fantastic and told the story with utterly brilliance aswell. Without many words she tells the story with such amazing photo and close-ups. She is a fantastic director and should be more acknowledged. She is the future in movie and she will be famous. Mark my words. I was so moved by the movie, I cried twice and had my cry stucked in my throat throughout the movie. It is still stucked in my head, the experience I head when I saw this beautiful movie. Please see it and be amazed.

I would like to start by saying how great the actors were. The movie basically focuses on 3 characters and most of the scenes were either at the shop or the house, and there is not much dialogue but the movie never felt too slow mainly because of the amazing performance by the lead actors. The actor who played Halim did much of the heavy lifting, he doesn't say much but in every scene his eyes speak a thousand words, also I didn't even realize that he's not Moroccan until after two thirds of the movie when I suddenly realized something is not right with his accent, so on top of the award worthy performance he did a great job in that regard as it's very hard for other Arabs to imitate the Moroccan accent.

There is a sub-theme about how hand crafting caftans is a dying art as it's expensive and time consuming and how people today prefer to get it machine sewed. They handled this topic with so much care albeit a bit too niche but it served to make us like the characters more and appreciate their dedication to such a beautiful craftmanship.

All in all, I went into this movie with very high expectations and was not let let down. 10/10.

I was so touched by this movie that I am looking for the right words to review it. First of all the main characters are astonishing actors/ess. The camera is most of the film on their faces as they are, natural and soooo expressive, unbelievable acting...Sometimes I felt I was there, I could feel them. The story is also beautiful, the place, the little shop where they work, the colour of the fabrics that contrast with the sadness and greyness of the atmosphere, even the tangerines that she likes are very symbolic. She is breath taking actress, I saw her at INCENDIES and never forgot her, and he.... OMG what a talented and good looking actor. As you read here, this little (BIG) movie is still in my mind and heart and I recommend to put it in your list. Silvia.

I was more touched and moved by The Blue Caftan than I can remember ever having been by a film, in my 70 + film-watching years. Just back from Morocco myself, and having so recently been in just such a caftan makers' shop, I guess I could identify with the business as well as with the three magnificent main characters. I am amazed that it has not been far more widely spoken about or received any of the highest awards. The sparseness of the dialogue underscores the extreme delicacy of what is actually said. I have previously known nothing of Moroccan film-making, and so I was a blank canvas. I feel as if a consummate artist has painted a masterwork on me.

I live in Morocco so I'm pretty open to nuance and possibilities here. There were a few scenes and actions that were not true to life and detracted from the film as they made me think of them negatively. The scenes in the hammam were not real. Firstly, it's unlikely that guys would cruise each other in the way they do in the film in a real place. Then blatantly taking one's conquest into a private booth when others can see what's going on under the door is just not credible. I've been to hammams and it just doesn't happen like that. The film was set in the medina of Salé. If any guy was so blatant about pulling other men at the baths, the whole médina would have known about it. So some of the lines in the film didn't ring true such as Halim's confession to Mina and her seeming acceptance of it. The couple would have been social outcasts in actual fact.

Nonetheless, hints that Mina knew were in the film. When she caught Halim ogling Youssef it didn't look as if this was the first time. And who wouldn't ogle Ayoub Missioui's character? Those come-to-bed eyes and his lips were seductive in the extreme. One wonders if there was more to the previous apprentices leaving than simple unsuitability to the work.

One last gripe. I'm not sure that the use the caftan was put to would have been allowed.

Apart from that I sat transfixed during the two hours of the film. Nabil Ayouch's influence was clear. Never one to shy away from difficult themes, forbidden desires were emphasised here. The fluttering attraction between the two men was delicately handled. In the meantime, Lubna Azabal as Mina played a fantastic part as the wife whom Halim, despite his deepest proclivities, really loved.

On several occasions during the film, I was overcome by emotion and had to pause once.

Despite the inner contradictions of this film that people not living here might not notice, I would absolutely recommend this. My few doubts were washed away by the sheer artistry of the players and screenplay. Put a couple of hours aside and watch.

This is a great delicate film, co-produced by Morocco and three European countries (France, Belgium and Denmark), with hard issues and well built characters, besides extraordinary performances, particularly of Lubna Azabal in the role of Mina. She is a strong woman, who never limits herself to social conventions. Her husband is a master tailor and her business partner, who loves her but is actually gay. An assistant will enter their lives and, together with a serious illness problem, will lead to new adjustments of their existence under pressure of the challenge of the automatization of sewing everywhere else.

The three principals work beautifully together and each has their own story arch and transformation. The only problem is with the subtitles that present themselves 5 - 8 seconds too early, causing confusion. By the time the line is spoken onscreen, the next subtitles are up, or long gone so you forget what is being said. . Fix that and you've got an ace in the hole.

The film does touch on the existing tension between traditional sexual mores and what is quietly accepted, condoned and even facilitated. Things are not always as they seem on the surface and there can indeed be other ways to have a fulfilled, loving relationship.

A very deep film, and very vividly rendered. It's almost hard to distinguish it from reality. I can't even tell when two hours have passed. And of course the acting of the protagonists was very successful. But I can't overlook the great visuals and music either. But I can't overlook the great visuals and music either. All in all, the film is simply brilliant, so the authors deserve praise and rewards. Movies like this give me hope - the hope that cinema will never reach its end...

This story is very current today in the vast majority of countries. I thought that at the end of the film he would dress her in the blue caftan and they would all go to the sea together, but it seems that the director was more ingenious...