Bird Watching – Nadine Labaki’s “Caramel”

May 7th, 2012 | POSTED BY Brandi Sperry

On May 11, Lebanese director Nadine Labaki’s second film, Where Do We Go Now?, will open in the United States. A festival sensation, winning the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival amid heavy competition and receiving acclaim at Cannes, that film is one of my most anticipated of the year. That anticipation grew astronomically when I finally watched Labaki’s first film, 2007’s Caramel. It’s an impressive debut feature that does one of my very favorite, rare things: lets female characters be kind to one another in the way that real friends are.

Caramel tells the story of a short period of time in the intertwining lives of several women who work at or patronize the same beauty shop—a set-up for getting female characters together that I might roll my eyes at, if it wasn’t used so well here to tell a story that’s both about issues that affect women all over the world, and issues that are specific to the culture in the film. We are in Beirut before the 2006 war with Israel (which began very shortly after filming ended), but this is not primarily a film about a nation set in a world of conflict. This is just their world—one where having a chat in your car after dark with your boyfriend might lead a patrolling soldier to harass you, but also one where people go about their daily business: job interviews, appointments, family meals, dates. This is life.

Our main character is Layale, played by Labaki herself. She’s a dynamic and beautiful young woman who is wasting her time on a married man. Her friend and co-worker, Nisrine (Yasmine Elmasri), is preparing for her upcoming wedding. Jamale (Gisèle Aouad), a customer, is a bit older and divorced, trying to support her two children by getting back into the acting career of her youth. Rima (Joanna Moukarzel) also works at the salon, and the film hints early on that she may be gay. Across the street, an older woman, Rose (Sihame Haddad), runs her seamstress business, and cares for an elderly relative, Lili (Aziza Samann), whose mind is no longer altogether there.

The characters do their best to support one another, with typical mixed results. Though I described them as kind, they also become exasperated with each other, and do things the others don’t like, just as people usually do. However, this is not a film about friends who fight and then reconcile. Their real “conflicts”—in the sense of the problems that move the script forward—are with their individual places in life, and the obstacles keeping them from moving toward what they want. Layale must hit bottom in her quest to be with this man who is not free, before she can move on; Nisrine must deal with a secret she’s keeping from her fiancé; Jamale confronts the ageism of her industry. Some problems have solutions. Some don’t.

While the film packs a fair amount of drama into its plotlines, it does so with more than a little humor. The characters feel like people who really know each other, which allows them to riff and tease in entertaining fashion. A side plot involving a neighborhood police officer with a crush on Layale reaches impressive levels of adorableness. And these moments of laughter and warmth balance beautifully with the darker personal issues each woman faces, most of which are heightened in interesting ways by the particular pressures of expectation put on women in this part of the world.

In speaking to those pressures, the film is smart in letting contrast between generations simply show itself, rather than using exposition-heavy conversations that would slow things down. Many older women wear the head scarf; younger women don’t. We’re not hit over the head with an idea that the members of the younger, more liberated generation are “better” than the older women in their lives who pepper them with questions about when they’ll settle down and get married. Problems that arise from breaches of “acceptable behavior” are dealt with calmly, with resolve. This helps the film to feel much more like a glimpse into lives that represent real people than it might have if its messages had been spelled out in angry monologues or moments of melodramatic despair.

All of the elements of a satisfying human drama come together in Caramel. With each scene, we either see a connection made between two people or a disconnect, usually of the variety that cannot be easily overcome. It fits the rhythm of life. And the beauty shop setting comes to represent a place of ritual, and of being good to yourself, but also of trying to attain some image that society would approve of. It provides a place where one can lament the status quo while still striving to navigate within it. That’s what many women do every day. We need more films like this one, that understand that women’s stories are worth telling, and that do so in such a deft and entertaining way.

Caramel is currently streaming on Netflix, and highly recommended.

Aziza Samann, Caramel, Gisèle Aouad, Joanna Moukarzel, Nadine Labaki, Sihame Haddad, Where Do We Go Now?, Yasmine Elmasri