سكر بنات - Caramel (Nadine Labaki, Lebanon)
A lot of the movies I see at the International Film Festival are not remarkable or noteworthy in cinematic terms but are still refreshing and worthwhile from a sociological perspective. In terms of plot and character,
Caramel, about a group of women centered around a beauty shop, offers little you haven't seen before. Each woman has their own problems to deal with; Layale (director and co-writer Nadine Labaki) is in a dead-end unhealthy relationship with an older married man, Nisrine (Yasmine Elmasri) is nervous about her upcoming wedding and unsure if her fiancé is the right man for her or how to love him, Rima (Joanna Moukarzel) is trying to come to terms with her attraction to women, Jamale (Gisèle Aouad) is a middleaged wannabe actress who is realizing she may be too old to catch her dreams, Rose (Sihame Haddad) has to decide if she wants to start a romantic relationship or continue looking after her sister. The small triumphs and tragedies of these women play out pretty much as you'd expect. What makes
Caramel worthwhile is its country of origin: Lebanon.
This is a small movie written and directed by a beautiful thirty-three-year-old woman in her hometown of Beirut. Completed just days before the 2006 war with Israel began,
Caramel (a reference to the confection boiled up not for candied eating but for waxing at the beauty shop) is a warm and charming character piece from a strong female perspective that focuses on concerns and emotions that are international and universal. It's not a great work of revolutionary cinema and Labaki doesn't seem destined to become the Middle Eastern queen of dramedy (I'd certainly see this before any and all movies starring Kate Hudson & Matthew McConaughey), but it
is great to see an unfiltered cultural perspective and to realize how familiar it really is.
GRADE: C+
Áo lụa Hà Đông - The White Silk Dress (Lưu Huỳnh, Vietnam)
Since Michael Cimino's
The Deer Hunter and Coppola's
Apocalypse Now American filmmakers have been dealing with the Vietnam War with serious and metaphorical cinema. But only a handful of movies have come from Vietnam itself. Lưu Huỳnh's epic is an allegorical tale of one family, a husband and wife and their four children, as they deal with the changing country from the mid 1950s at the end of French Colonial rule up through the United States military action that ended in 1975. The title object is the dress that Khanh Quoc Nguyen's character was found in as an abandoned infant and Truong Ngoc Anh's character used as her wedding dress when they married, even though they were firmly stuck in poverty. As their one possession it is a cherished object and becomes even more important years later when their two oldest daughters are of school age and need the garment to be recut into a dress they can share to receive educations. We watch as the husband and wife struggle and do anything they can to let their small family survive. The most extreme act is like something out of a David Lynch or Pier Paolo Pasolini flick where Truong sells her services as a wetnurse by feeding an ailing old rich man through a breast-sized gloryhole. What that symbolizes exactly in Vietnam's history I'm not sure, but it's an image I won't soon forget.
The politics of
The White Silk Dress are kind of all over the place and difficult to pin down, but whatever grander metaphors Lưu Huỳnh was going for it does work as a stylized if sometimes muddled and tad too long drama of this one family. Truong Ngoc Anh is especially good as the wife and mother doing whatever she can for her family.
GRADE: C
Irina Palm (Sam Garbarski, Belgium/U.K.)
Speaking of gloryholes,
Irina Palm is an odd and interesting piece about another woman who finds herself doing something she never would have dreamed of for the sake of a loved one. Singer and sometimes actress Marianne Faithfull stars as Maggie, a frumpy widow living outside of London who has a problem. Her pre-teen grandson is sick, and after years of battling the illness she and her son and daughter-in-law are tapped out financially and emotionally. The little boy is nearing the end unless he can get a special new treatment in Australia. The medical procedures would be done pro bono, but as far as airline tickets, hotels, etc., they have no way to pay. Maggie has already sold her house and unless they can come up with multiple thousands of dollars in six short weeks, all hope may be lost. Depressed and desperate, Maggie applies for loans and jobs only to be turned down for lack of collateral and experience. It's in this state that she happens upon a sign outside a club looking for a hostess.
Hostess is just a euphemism, what the job really entails is sex. This strip club has rooms with gloryholes where a man can get anonymous release from a soft female hand. The club owner (Miki Manojlovic) takes a look at Maggie's hands and offers her a job, starting for at least six-hundred pounds a week. She is terrified and offended, of course, but after sleeping on it and realizing her lack of options she decides to give it a try. She is reticent and disgusted, but quickly it becomes just a job and soon she is gaining a reputation as the best hands in London and she's given a handle (sorry, couldn't resist the pun) "Irina Palm", a stage name of sorts. But if her son or her conservative suburban friends discover her secret before she's gotten enough money for her grandson all will be for naught.
This could have easily degenerated into the kind of wacky comedy with a salacious bent but heart of gold that the U.K. has been cranking out with regularity since the surprise success of
The Full Monty a decade ago. But
Irina Palm doesn't go for the cheap laugh nor does it lean on paint-by-numbers sentimentality. It's a very odd character piece and Faithfull is very good in the lead, a very understated and realistic performance in the midst of unusual and potentially extreme subject matter. The trust in and reliance on that character is the movie's greatest strength.
GRADE: B-
Reply to Topic
