AS UNLIKELY AS IT MIGHT SOUND, THIS PORTRAIT OF A BEIRUT HAIR SALON MIGHT JUST BE THIS YEAR’S SLEEPER FEEL-GOOD HIT.
A warmly observed ensemble drama about women trying to make the best of things in a society which limits their options, Caramel is a truly open-hearted piece of film-making certainly deserving a wide audience. There’s no explicit mention of the nation’s ongoing conflict here, but the salon’s rather scuffed surroundings tell their own story, as writer-director Nadine Labaki also stars as a hairdresser having an illicit affair with a married man. The fact that she’s still single and living at home with her family makes this a tricky procedure, but we do wonder just how wise she is to carry on hoping her lover will leave his family. Not that life is any easier for her colleagues, one of whom is getting married but anxious that the groom will discover she’s not technically a virgin, while the only outlet for the sexual preferences of their tomboyish fellow worker is delivering sensual scalp massages to occasionally colluding female clients.
The title, incidentally, comes from the establishment’s sugar, water and lemon juice concoction, shaped into a sticky paste and used for hair removal. Caramel is an essential beauty aid in these parts, and, as something the women do for themselves, it almost becomes a talisman of self determination. Labaki is too generous to make all the men macho tyrants, insisting instead on the bittersweet fizz of small feminine victories in the fraught milieu she describes as ‘my Beirut’. Lovely stuff, and the largely non-professional cast are pitch perfect.—Trevor Johnston.