1 post tagged “cinema”

I have started signing up for all the Timeout preview screenings - mainly because I am stingy, love the cinema and love a free film even more, no matter what the film is like. The problem is that the preview screening thing is based on a bit of a lottery service, so most of the time you get a polite email back telling you that you haven't succeeded this time but that urges you to keep trying.

Now, for the first time I actually won one of the free tickets, to the preview of Caramel - I read up on the film and thought (shamefully) "oh god, a Lebanese film about women". All the people I tried to ask along with me thought the same thing (because I ended up going on my own). I wasn't about to miss out on the first free ticket I finally won though, so I went to the cinema with absolutely no expectations but a massive bucket of popcorn.

Oh my god was I wrong with my initial reaction. It is probably the law that if you expect something to be long and dreary you end up having the best time, and thus of course this ended up one of the most enjoyable films I have seen this year. The film follows the lives of a group of female friends who all work in the same run-down beauty parlour. One has a doomed affair with a married man, one discovers feelings for a female visitor to the shop, one is about to get married and terrified that her husband-to-be will discover that she is no longer a virgin, and one is a menopausal actress terrified of getting older.

This set-up doesn't sound very humourous, and there is a great feeling of bitter-sweetness throughout the movie, so it is even more surprising that the comedy elements are so frequent and so thoroughly funny. Beirut is shown as a normal, exotic (rather than war-torn) city where its citizens lead everyday lives, although undercurrents of the conflict between women's liberation on one side and a male-dominated society on the other side can be seen throughout the film. Another great thing is the soundtrack which suits the whole feel of the story from start to finish. It doesn't happen often that I walk out of the cinema at the end thinking "wow", but it definitely happened this time!

So I can thoroughly recommend this movie (although people who really don't want to watch films about women's issues should probably stay clear). I guess I also got a lesson in being a bit more open-minded with regards to non-mainstream movies!