My big fat Lebanese wedding (updated)
Sukkar Banat (Caramel), a Lebanese Beauty Shop, is the mother of all chick flicks. Nadine Labaki is the best reason to see this movie, but can guys handle it? It wallows in menstrual blood, menopause, hymenoplasty, depilation with caramelized taffy, affairs with married men, a chaste lesbian fantasy and aimless, late-in-the-day gossip at a beauty salon. It’s an afternoon out with the girls — three hijab-wearing college students squealed, ‘It was so good!’ But it’s 1½ hours long, and nothing much happens. (Yes, that’s a very male POV.)
That this amiable but lightweight flick got 91% on RottenTomatoes, and the brilliant In Bruges only 73%, is a travesty. It’s the soft bigotry of low cultural expectations: bonus points for attractive foreign women stripped of scary Arab men and their inconvenient politics. The filmmaker even shears the moustache off a beau, the personal as political. The movie’s American marketing slings multiculti clichés, as if it were another Chocolat or Like Water for Chocolate (which it isn’t). Maybe after a Pecan Pie and a Vanilla Ice Cream, they’ll finally tire of generic dessert titles. But in its original context, there’s something to be said for a film which tackles issues of sexuality and gender not openly discussed in Lebanon.
The film is drenched in orange filter and shot with the eye of an ad photographer. It’s neat and predictable, in places artless; Labaki cuts back and forth from pelvic surgery to a sewing machine as it runs. But I did learn a few things about Beirut. French is pervasive. Like the villagers in Virasat, they really do ululate to celebrate, it’s not just Jon Stewart being a little racist. Their wedding songs sound as folksy as traditional Punjabi. They play an instrument at weddings, a mizmar (thanks SP), which sounds like the shehnai. There’s a touching, mother-daughter heart-to-heart before a wedding which could have come from any Bollyflick. The Arabic-Hindi lineage comes up over and over with words like sukkar / shakar (sucre / sucrose), mubarak and so on. And Lebanese films too have their Hrithik Roshan lookalikes and their ancient, comic Zohra Sehgal.
Notice how, except for the songs, the U.S. trailer avoids any hint of a foreign language. It’s like Waris’ banishment from the Life Aquatic poster:
Update: The New Yorker writes:
Caramel was completed one week before the July 2006 war with Israel, which brought about the rushed exodus of many of Beirut’s artists. Beirut was, at the time, bounding with optimism and was steadily reclaiming its standing as the center of Arabic art… Alas, the film’s joviality feels eons away from where Beirut is at right now. As assassinations continue to claim Lebanon’s progressive leaders, the country stumbles further and further into seemingly irreparable dysfunction. Over the past two years, several film festivals have been cancelled, many organizers have fled to Dubai, and a number of filmmakers have returned to Europe. [Link]
NPR:
Customers include a past-her-prime actress who requires special help for auditions, a seamstress who wants to impress an elderly suitor, and a policeman who has a crush on Layale but is still duty-bound to ticket her car every day. [Link]
on Tuesday, February 12th, 2008, 1:05 pm in Film, Video clips › 
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Wow. “Wallows in menstrual blood.” That’s a rather accurate description of my current physical state. If it expresses the true nature of being a woman that cogently, perhaps I need to see this film after all. *__^
Are you kidding? Arabs ululate for everything. Winning football matches, even ;)
And the shehnai-like instrument is called a mizmar.
Beirutis, especially of the Westernized Christian class, are pretty liberal from what I hear. Beirut sounds a lot like Bombay.
you had me at hymenoplasty. ‘alvin & the chipmunks’ can wait
Wasn’t there a similar beauty shop Black-themed movie? I’m not referring to Eddie Murphy’s barbershop.
The Lebanese women enjoy their mutton & sweets. I’ve never met one over 26+ who
didn’t have hips for ululating. The men there like women with meat on their bones like in Puerto Rico.
Speaking of such, did anyone see the recent Little India article on singles? The desi guys were
bemoaning there are few and far in between desi chicks with gym toned bodies. I thought
the Auntie-generation (lack) of exercise was over.
Yeah, the first link.
That story starts with the idea that NetIP is a good pickup scene…
dude… the links arent easy to see. it’s like weak doodhchai . how about you show your desi colors for a change with a saffron background and the links showing up in vermillion.
explain to me someone how hips help one ululate.. a case of sympathetic resonance between the uvula and the hips.
That was meant to say “hips for pullulating” or was it “hips for undulating” :-)
Is NetIP a hip scene? I thought it was a remnant of 90’s.
Rotten Tomatoes is a dubious rating site, at best. I wouldn’t take their percentiles to heart.
And OF COURSE the US trailer dodges the foreign aspect. Brown people are too “iffy” these days…and if the brown people are Arabs…!
What, my SM design wasn’t enough sari-cover for ya :)
Don’t believe in the wisdom of crowds? Probably wise.
I believe that Labaki’s street name on the film circuit is Chadha of the Crescent.