spotlightkid Such a lovely film. Rented it through Cinema Paradiso, I am obsessed with French cinema and this was among all the French ones so added it to my list and when it arrived I discovered it wasn't French but I was not disappointed at all. It was such a lovely film,cheerful and sweet,

james-mag85 always love these beautiful foreign movies, Nadine Labaki has made such a beautiful piece of art showing feminine side of beautiful and romantic land of Lebanon. loved the way nadine labaki has shown different women from different religions but same culture of co- existence in Lebanon. loved the scene when traffic warden gives a visit to her beauty saloon. he looks kinda cute in that scene...while nadine labaki with her very dominating and beautiful eyes was looking so gorgeous.I hope she will keep making such beautiful movies showing different life styles of Lebanese people.

thisissubtitledmovies When a foreign film manages to make that break across the border and garner international success there's often the expectation that it should act as an ambassador for its country of origin, especially when that nation is not known for its prolific cinematic output. But where does that leave Nadine Labaki's Lebanese romance Caramel? Can any film successfully walk that balance between the light-hearted and the weighty? Caramel may flirt with the anachronistic studio-era concept of being a 'woman's picture' but when the only current offering for strong female leads in cinemas sees entire platoons of the Boots 'here come the girls' set marching blindly into cinemas to watch four over-paid harridans bemoaning the lack of haute couture in Abu Dhabi there has never been a better time to discover the mature and believable view of romance purported by Caramel. Who says rom coms have to be dumb screen fodder? JB

simona gianotti In Beirut, six women and six stories meet around a women's beauty parlour: Layale, in love with a married man who will never leave his wife for her, Nisrine, who is going to get married and doesn't know how to tell his boyfriend she is no longer virgin, Rima, who doesn't accept to be attracted by women, Jamale, obsessed by age and physical appearance and Rose, who has sacrificed the best years of her life to look after her sister. Inside the hot, colourful and magnetic atmosphere of the old-fashioned beauty parlour, between brush strokes and caramel wax we hear them speaking about sex, love, maternity, with the freedom and intimacy that only women can show. The result is a delicate fresco on women, capable of getting straightforwardly to the heart of women, but not only. A very delicate, never vulgar watercolour, depicting women involved in what seem to be out of time female problems and concerns. A fresco which also deals with hot topical issues, such as war, the living together between Catholics and Muslims, the clash of different cultures, but never losing its amusing and amused tone. In the end, we are both stunned and comforted by the strength that only women can show when they join together and problems are to be faced. The director and actress Nadine Labaki manages to render the female daily melancholy, without ever falling into the banal or the cliché, but through a powerful and intense synaesthetic strategy: through eyes, smells, sounds, in such a poignant way, as to make us able to touch, to smell, to taste what is being performed, as if we were absorbed in that same intense atmosphere. A word must be spent for the soundtrack, well and wisely dosed, and never boring. A feel-good and intelligent movie I would suggest to all women, and, why not, also to men.