As seen at AFI
Fest 2007:
Nadine Labaki’s Caramel
is a strange bird: a film that explores the socio-political
persecution of females in the Middle East while still
maintaining a frothy, light-hearted tone. Prominent as its
background-conflict—the plight of women in Muslim areas of
Lebanon—may be to its characters’ lives, it certainly doesn’t
interfere with their embrace of a classic “feel-good” story. In
fact, Caramel is rather light-hearted for the majority of
its running length, operating as an affable character-study
following the lives of the employees and customers of a Beirut
beauty parlor.
The protagonist of
Caramel is Layale (Labaki herself, who is radiant and
tremendously attractive in the role), the proprietor of the
focal beauty shop. Layale lives a troubled personal life, caught
up in an affair with a married man who isn’t particularly
interested in having a relationship with her so much as he is in
the ability to have sex with two different women. At Layale’s
side are employees Nisirine (Yasmine Al Masri), who is engaged
to be married but doesn’t know how to tell her traditionalist
Muslim husband that she isn’t a virgin (or hide the fact from
him), and Rima (Joanna Moukarzel), who fully realizes her
lesbian sexuality when a mysterious client begins to attract
her. Layale’s main clients include Jamale (Gisele Aouad), a
middle-aged woman coping with the process of aging, and Rose (Siham
Haddade), an old regular to the parlor who is constantly
troubled by her elderly quack of an older sister.
Caramel’s characters
prove endearing and the movie is almost uniformly well-acted.
Still, there is little inherently original about the story or
its participants. What is most fascinating about the film is the
intimate look that it provides Western viewers of Lebanese
culture. Typically, Lebanon is regarded as a very modern nation
because of the large percentage of Christians living there (at
least compared to those in other Arab countries). Still, as one
watches Caramel, one learns that a major part of the
average Lebanese citizen’s lifestyle (particularly that of a
woman) is dictated by traditional Islamic Law. This aspect of
the film proves particularly riveting when Layale tries to rent
a hotel room for she and her forbidden partner to spend their
anniversary in. At nearly every location, she is denied this
ability because she doesn’t share his last name (and is
therefore presumably not married to him, meaning a sexual
relationship between the two is morally forbidden).
And yet, as eye-opening as
Caramel may seem to me, an American, I must also consider
how other audiences might respond to it. If I was a man of
Lebanese descent watching the movie, I would probably find it
mediocre and rather boring. While the artistic elements of the
film are not inherently bad, they certainly lack
inspiration and are only slightly better than what you might
find in a good Lifetime Original Movie. If I was a female of
Lebanese descent, I would be even less interested in the movie
because I wouldn’t be captivated by the action of staring at
Lebaki’s luscious face (her notable charm aside). As a
straightforward piece of cinema, cultural insights disregarded,
Caramel is thoroughly unoriginal. As such, I am only able
to recommend the movie to those who would like to learn about
Lebanese culture without having to endure tedious History
Channel programs on the subject.
-Danny Baldwin, Bucket Reviews
Review Published on: 11.20.2007
Screened on: 11.2.2007 at the
ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood, CA.
Caramel is rated PG and runs 95
minutes.
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