I took the bite for Moolaadé and I'm glad I did. Now I want you to see a movie I tell you. While I'd give it 8/10, it's really a movie I think everyone should see.

Caramel (or Sukkar banat as it's called in original) is basically a by the numbers kind of romantic comedy that centers around the group of women. But what differentiates it from every other romantic comedy is that the themes we got used to and don't pay attention in our world, in some other parts, in some other cultures, female's have a lot of trouble hiding them and trying to live with them.

Nadine Labaki (it's her first movie ever; she acts in it too) is a very talented director. All of the themes are approached with such a subtlety, but yet again everything is so clear and spelled out perfectly. Every part of the movie is charming and there's hardly anyone I think who won't like it.

The main problem I had with the movie is that it locks itself within its characters. Which isn't a bad thing per se, but I feel like that deprived the movie from being completely phenomenal. Nevertheless is a really good movie.

So Netflix it, download it, buy it - whatever just see it.

I saw this in theaters.

Really liked it. It wasn't groundbreaking or anything but, yeah good movie.

I loved the older woman's storyline. It was soooo sad.

Is it Israeli? Sukkar is an English transliteration of 'Sugar' from Hebrew. Hmmm. I've never heard of it. Is it available on DVD? If so, I'll try to watch it in the upcoming weeks with my mom. She'll like it probably, judging form your description.

Be.redy. This forum gets no love. You have to be seriously loud and obnoxious in order to get people to listen to your recs!

It's a Lebanese movie. I don't know if its out on DVD. I saw it at one festival.


Hmmm - the one that's trying to be a model, or the old lady that sews?

I liked both of those storylines. Especially the old lady that sews. Her mother was portrayed as a crazy but what amazed me was that she was given also a pretty sad love story.

The one that sews is the one I was talking about.
and the her crazy mom was great, some comic relief but sad in her own way too.

The one that tries to be a model or get acting parts was also great. I mean talk about desperate housewives. heh

It's actually available on netflix now, Galia!

I just added it to my parents queue!

Yeah. I loved that they were all pretty much opened to each other about everything in some Lebanese SatC way, but each one of them kept their desperate moment for themselves. The model at the wedding in the bathroom was a great scene.

How's that queue going?

Well, believe it or not, Lebanon is probably the most free-spirited country in the Arab world. A film like this would never be made in Egypt. Heck, Caracel was 1 out of 4 films this year to receive an "adults only" rating, just because it has some lesbian themes.

However, I totally agree you. I think it's the best film of the year so far. The subplot of Siham, the one who sews, is simply heartbreaking.

be.redy: This weekend if I can help it. Its next in line and I am going to return the ones we have this week. I just started class monday so I can't promise I can watching it until late in the weekend, but its only fair that you took my suggestion now I will take yours. Besides, the discussion here between you, raffi, and asalem has definitely piqued my curiosity. I'll report back as soon as I see it.

It might be the most free spirited, but still if the movie is truthful to the real state, some things are still not that free. spirited



I definitely got the feeling that some things pass here easier than what I knew previously from the Arabic world, but still there are limitations.

Exactly. It's better, but obviously, there are still some limitations. Personally, I felt that the bit where

Next in line. It was supposed to come last weekend, actually, but I think my parets altered the flix queue without me knowing because Age of Innocence showed up instead. Now I've checked the list, and I will probably see this mid-week right when it arrives. Can't wait.

I'm so mad at myself for missing this in theater..

So that's what the caramel was used for. Being as how I'm the probably the only woman that regularly visits this forum, I should have better guessed...

Well did you like the movie?

I did! Thanks for the rec be.redy.

Some thoughts on the five major storylines *spoiler warning*:

Rose was actually the least interesting story for me, and I found the 'end' of it to be a little off. I mean, if she really wanted to go out for a night she could have asked someone at the salon to come by and keep an eye on Lili. They already did her hair up, so its not like they didn't know what was going on. I dunno, her storyline seemed like the 'easy' generational one. One that couldn't be blamed on politics or culture but just on an older woman who couldn't let go of her daily habits.

If that is what she was meant to represent, it served as an ok compliment to Rima's storyline. This was the opposite, the young and the new. And really the shampooing scenes were cute and the eventual short haircut a sign of chance in a younger generation, but that was about it. Nice arc, but not in particular that developed.

I found the Layale, Nisrine, and Jamale had much stronger stories. I understand how Layale continued to act silly waiting for her 'boyfriend' to come all the time. Seriously the scene where she goes around to the hotelrooms was the strongest. First because it reflected the stifling cultural/political situation around sexuality and second because it showed just how desperate she was to try and impress him and ingratiate herself upon him. I releate to these things because I found her to be otherwise quite independent and head-strong, with this total transformation everytime he called. This is how I myself have acted in relationships in the past, so maybe I am over-reading it, but I found it to be a great portrayel of her personality and weaknesses. The sort of love-story with the cop softened and cutened it up a bit. I liked it. It was cheesy but added a bit of much-needed humour and softness to the movie.

Nisrine when she got herself stitched! I know why this movie reminded you of Moolaade, be.redy. And I really liked how scared she was about not being a virgin that she would put herself through that. Her fiance got in a fight with a cop over her, and he actually liked her normal levels of skin-showing (before she made herself up to visit the family). He might not have even minded if she told him, but we'll never know just how far he would have accepted her and neither will she. She was mortified. It really brought home to me the sort of underlying problems around female sexuality that I think the movie was really trying to emphasize. I mean, they are in their mid 20-s to 30 (I am guessing) and have healthy, active, inpedendent lives. They date, they dress attractively, have jobs, etc., and yet there is this dark undertone where women's liberation only went so far.

It took me a while to figure out what was upwith Jamale. I liked her enough, and she seemed like the most dissappointed in life out of all of them. For that reason, I assumed when she was faking her period that it was about hiding that she was pregnant again because she was considering aborting (in secret). I don't know why I got that feeling, but I thought it was because she was so dissappointed in how her family life turned out that she didn't want it to coninute. That she was giving a public performance of not being pregnant. But I don't know, I checked out the plot on imdb just now and someone wrote that they thought it was just her fear of aging. That makes sense too, so I feel like it was a bit of both. Dissappointment and a fear of losing her youthful looks. Like if her life has sort of slipped into nothingness and her body is following. It was interesting because it was a very personal depression.

I liked the movie quite a bit on a technical level. Nice pacing and editing, screenshots, dialogue.

Jamale was definitely fear of old age story.

I'm glad you liked it. I gave it 8/10. It's not a great movie, but a very enjoyable one. As I already said I can hardly imagine anyone not liking it.