**** David ***1/2 Margaret
Thursday 14th May
6.30pm pre-screening drink
7.00pm film commences
“Caramel” has an optimism born not of dreamy romanticism but of resilience and a degree of hard-headedness. Life for these women is not easy or especially fair, and each of them faces moments of humiliation, loneliness and potential heartbreak. But in the best melodramatic tradition, their toughness, good humor and loyalty see them through. Those qualities, and Ms. Labaki’s evident affection for the battered panache of her native city, make “Caramel” hard to resist. A O Scott, New York Times
Synopsis
A Beirut beauty salon is the setting for the ups and downs of romantic life for a group of Lebanese women in CARAMEL. Layale is the owner of the salon who is unsatisfactorily involved with a married man. Her salon colleagues Nisrine and Rima are sympathetic and supportive, while local policeman Youssef is secretly besotted by her.Nisrine has problems of her own, she’s about to get married and is worried that her husband will find out she’s not a v_rg_n and Rima is ambivalent about her own s__uality. Meanwhile salon clients Jamale and Rose are concerned about aging and lost opportunities.
Trailer
http://www.abc.net.au/atthemovies/txt/s2350018.htm
Beautiful movie in every way. All we usually hear about Beirut is based around the war, but this is about the human beings who live there. The title is based on the mixture of sugar and water that is used for hair removal in the Lebanon. Like many of these beautiful art-house movies, the plot appears random at the start, but as the film evolves, within 15 minutes the threads begin to untangle and the shape emerges. To be honest, the random quality at the front doesn't matter, because it's "story set-up time" in entertaining scenes. For me it's a keeper, a DVD that goes into my "will definitely watch again" box alongside "Babettes Feast", "My Life as a Dog" etc. A joy of a movie.
ReplyDelete