Critics at Cannes Film Festival staged a mass walkout during a screening of a film which featured a 13-minute-long, unsimulated sex scene.
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Film writers slammed Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo as "the worst film in the competition" and "leery trash" for its portrayal of women's bodies.
Kiwi producer/director Patricia Hetherington tweeted: "I just walked out of Mektoub My Love: Intermezzo.
"The most lascivious leery trash I've seen. Eurgh! Talk about objectification and voyeurism."
Another writer, Stephen Miller, posted a photo of the empty seats in the theatre, showing the "skeleton crew that didn't walk out".
"I've witnessed the worst film in competition by miles, and its name is MEKTOUB," he wrote.
"Contemptible, male gazing garbage."
Jason Gorber described the three-and-a-half-hour long flick as a "demonic film trapped in a Eurotrash dance club".
"Assembled with as much flair as an assembly cut, it's a violently repetitive ode to shaking butts and breasts," he wrote.
Director Abdellatif Kechiche reportedly apologized to what was left of the audience at the end of the screening, telling them: "I apologise for having detained you without warning you…I am going away."
Kechiche later admitted he understood his approach was a controversial one.
"I tried to do something different, and not everyone is open to that," he said at a press conference.
"Not everyone is open to the way I look at others."
Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo has currently earned a score of 8 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
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