Caramel is the directorial debut of Lebanese actress Nadine Labaki. She also played the main protagonist of the movie, Layale. Being an Arabic movie made by a woman about women, this picture considerably strays from the traditional depicting of female characters, presenting its unique view, which we are going to discuss in this essay.
The movie is set in Beirut and focuses on the lives of five women of different generations and backgrounds: three workers of a beauty salon – Layale, Nisrine, and Rima, their client and mutual friend Jamale, and a tailor living nearby named Rosa. All of the characters have their issues that are elaborated on to different degrees: Layale is having an affair with a married man; Nisrine is afraid that her fiancé will find out that she is not a virgin; Rima is attracted to one of the salon’s female customers; Jamale cannot find any success auditioning for television commercials; Rosa is trying to keep her life together while taking care of her demented sister Lili. The movie was made in 2007 – the time when Lebanon was “just coming out of its latest encounter with the Israeli Defense Forces” (Hadid, 2013, para 21). This fact is not highlighted in the movie too much: the filming spots are mostly restricted to the inside and the outside of the salon (which notably has one letter of its logo missing), the inside of Rose’s flat/tailor shop, apartments of the other characters, some hotel rooms, etc.
Labaki also tries to avoid stereotyping Arab women: although they do have traits of people living in the Muslim culture (for example, losing one’s virginity before marriage poses s big enough problem to become one of the sub-plots), they are also independent. It is even implied that Rima is a lesbian: she has short hair, she never wears skirts or dresses, and she is the only one tasked with all the repair works in the building (for example, fixing the generator) apart from her normal hairdressing duties. Her sexuality also shows in the way she tends to a particular female customer of the salon: the way Rima looks at her the minute she enters the place, the way she keeps an awkward eye-contact with her while washing her hair, and so on.
The attraction between the two women is mutual as the nameless female customer keeps coming back and requesting Rima’s services. At one point we witness a conversation between them in which the woman says “Your hair is beautiful” to Rima, to which she replies with “Thank you. I like yours too, but… short hair would suit you, you have a beautiful face” (Labaki & Hojeily, 2007). By the end of the movie the woman gets her hair cut short. Unfortunately, Rima seems to be more like a statement than the character – among the other protagonists she is the least developed one; the viewer won’t know much about her background. She is there to emphasize the fact that women in general and Arab women, in particular, have the right to be interested not only in men, which in some way makes them equal to men.
The men in the movie, on the other hand, are bland and two-dimensional. Practically they represent different conditions of the female protagonists’ lives. An extreme example of this is Layale’s married lover, whose face we never even get to see in the film.
In conclusion, it should be noted that Western influences and products, posing as role models as well as rivals for the Eastern world, add a lot of cultural diversity to the medium of Arab cinema. They might clash with its original culture at times to the point of being criticized (Shafik, 2007, p.4), but they give the movies fresher ideas and unique perspectives at the same time. The given film is a quite good example of this.
References
Hadid, R. (2013). Telling Women’s Stories: Post-Orientalist Film in the Arab World. Muftah. Web.
Shafik, V. (2007). Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity. Cairo, Egypt: Cairo Press.
Toussaint, A. D. (Producer), & Labaki, N. (Director). (2007). Caramel [Motion picture]. Lebanon, France: Les Films des Tournelles, Les Films de Beyrouth, Roissy Films, Sunnyland, Arte France Cinéma.