Caramel
by Nadine Labaki
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Adel Karam, Gisèle Aouad, Joanna Moukarzel, Nadine Labaki, Yasmine ElmasriDirector: Nadine Labaki
Brand: Lions Gate
Writer: Nadine Labaki
Producer: Anne-Dominique Toussaint
Producer: Raphael Berdugo
Producer: Rémi Burah
Producer: Stéphane Riga
Writer: Jihad Hojeily
Writer: Rodney El Haddad
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Arabic (Original Language); French (Original Language)
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 95 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-06-17
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Lionsgate
Movie Reviews of Caramel
Movie Review: "Your name is my prayer..."
Summary: 5 Stars
"Caramel" is not what you'd expect of Lebanese filmmaking and in particular movies about that most troubled of their cities - Beirut. I found it touching, unbelievably insightful and genuinely romantic too - it's one of the loveliest watches I've had the pleasure of seeing in years.
The largely unknown cast is superb and each deserves specific mention:
NADINE LABAKI plays LAYALE - the sexy yet scatterbrained 35-year old owner of "Si Belle" - a salon that acts as emotion-central for co-workers and girlfriends. Layale is having a giddy but demeaning affair with a married man whom we never see except as a shadow in a car under a bridge - or hear him - as he honks his horn outside the premises for her to come running...
YASMINE AL MASRI plays NISRINE - one of Layale's best workers - the beautiful and young Nisrine is having doubts about her forthcoming marriage to BASSAM a headstrong modern man played by ISMAL ANTAR. Bassam is a man who will take on the oppressive state and even God rather than capitulate; Nisrine's also worried that Bassam might not want her should he find out about her less-than-virginal past
GISELE AOUAD plays JAMALE TARABAY - a customer and friend of the younger ladies. Jamale's mid to late 40's, an actress who is getting too old to nab the lucrative advert roles anymore and goes to sad and desperate lengths to stay young-looking.
JOANNA MOUKARZEL plays the slightly butch RIMA - a lowly washer of hair in the saloon who falls silently and breathlessly in love with a beautiful woman who walks in off the street one afternoon. She is played by FATME SAFA - and may even share with shy Rima the love that dares not speaks its name...
SIHAM HADDAD plays the stoical and ceaselessly loving ROSE (Rima's 60+ Aunt) who lives across the street from the salon in her haberdashery business. LILI, her even older sister (played to stunning perfection by AZIZA SEMAAN) is a mouthy old curmudgeon who picks up bits of paper off the streets and tells everyone there's a plane coming to take her and her lover away. Rose is driven to despair by Lili's increasingly difficult senility until one day a gentleman caller comes in for a suit alteration. His name is CHARLES played by a debonair DIMITRI STANCOFSKY - Charles says little, but his kind and warm glances reawaken a tenderness in Rose she'd long thought gone - and of course poses her with a horrible family conundrum....
ADEL KARAM plays YOUSSEF the parking-ticket Policeman who longs for Layale from a distance, but she is too busy screwing up her life to notice. Youssef is handsome, decent and right for her, if only Layale would stop sticking her tongue out at him...
FADIA STELLA plays the redheaded and lovely CHRISTINE KHOURI, wife of Rahid, the feckless husband we never see. She comes calling to "So Beautiful" for a free waxing one afternoon after a phone-call the previous day to her home by a sappily desperate Layale. Or perhaps Christine's there to size up the threat to her marriage and her lovely young daughter...
There are many other cameos and they're all excellent.
Nadine Labaki - the principal actress and director - co-wrote the script with RODNEY EL HADDAD and JIHAD HOJEILY. It's her 1st film and she could easily have shirked the undeniable downside of their world in order to make the film a more palatable package for Western viewers - but she doesn't. The eternal shame heaped on women by virtue of religious guilt in all things that they do - the double standards of the authorities - the legacy of war lingering malevolently in the background - all of is subtly woven into crucial scenes. Their lives are not given to you in a preachy or clichéd manner, but in a way that shows you just what a Middle Eastern woman has to cope with nowadays. They laugh like us, they cry, they triumph, they make their mistakes, take stock, get back up again - and try their damnedest to be modern in a world inextricably tied into a two-thousand year old past. Family acts as the bedrock - friends are cherished - and love - like in every society - is the simple and deeply sought after goal for all. It's a positive and refreshing film and a view of Beirut city life that you just don't ever see.
The script is full of deftly insightful stuff too - scenes that are just so funny, tender, sad, romantic: the kid under the family dinner table looking up Nisrine's skirt because she and Bassam were playing touchy-feely legs and he knows the woman can't rat him out; the tenderness between Charles and Rose as he quietly sugars her tea in his apartment after she's returned his altered gentleman's trousers; Jamale sat on a toilet using a bottle of ink on tissue paper to feign her still having youth; Rima's lovely face as she falls in love, softly washing the long flowing jet-black hair of a stunningly beautiful customer in the lean-back sink...her huge brown eyes as she looks back up at Rima....and smiles...
To effortlessly move from the old-world respect of the elderly couple to the sensual playfulness of the young lesbians in the salon is fantastic writing.
"Caramel" blew me away - it made me ache for these good people and their hopes and aspirations and dreams. But if you want real persuasion, there are FOUR nomination references on the DVD's rear sleeve, one of which is the WINNER of the AUDIENCE AWARD at the "San Sebastian Film Festival". Not the critics - not the industry insiders - the 'audience' award. That public knew a winner when they saw one.
Joy, pride and heart went into the making of this little foreign film (called "Sukkar Banat" in some territories) - and as the credits role and Nadine Labaki's dedication tells you the movie is "For My Beirut" - it's hard not to be impossibly moved.
Put "Caramel" high on your rental/to buy list. And then make a beeline for Mira Nair's "The Namesake" - another peach of a movie - cut with the same tenderness and grace.
PS: the title of this review is a lyric from a love song sung by Rima at Nisrine's wedding
Summary of Caramel
CARAMEL - DVD MovieTaking its title from the sweet substance that doubles as a depilatory, this honey-hued diversion makes few claims towards originality. Other female-oriented films have centered around salons, but the Lebanese locale of Nadine Labaki's debut distinguishes Caramel from the likes of Venus Beauty Institute (with Audrey Tautou) and Beauty Shop (with Queen Latifah). In Labaki's generous take on the subgenre, she plays Layale, a stunning stylist in love with a family man. Little does she realize bashful beat cop Youssef (Adel Karam), who issues Layale a stream of traffic citations, feels the same way about her. Parlor regulars include Muslim bride-to-be Nisrine (Yasmine Elmasri), ambiguous assistant Rima (Joanna Moukarzel), age-obsessed actress Jamale (Gisèle Aouad), and lonely seamstress Rose (Sihame Haddad). The inclusion of neighbors Youssef and Rose, who spends most of her time caring for a delusional sister, confirms Caramel's true subject as the city of Beirut. Aside from their reduced circumstances--Layale lives at home and shares a room with her brother--the central quartet echoes the tart-tongued professionals of Sex and the City (which makes Jamale the group?s Samantha). Before the bittersweet conclusion, each woman experiences a revelation of sorts. For Layale, it entails getting to know both her sympathetic rival and her secret admirer. Compared to most Western comedy-dramas, Caramel is as modest as the culture it depicts--Rima's attraction to women, for instance, is merely suggested--but Labaki's compassion for her characters redeems the sometimes-familiar situations. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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