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SATIN ROUGE Send This Review to a Friend
Welcome to the world of belly dancing. The setting is Tunis and Lilia, a widow and seamstress, is leading an uptight life. She has a teenage daughter and is protectively vigilant about keeping her daughter busy with studies and on a moral path. True, the daughter's sexuality is already secretly in play, but in the captivating new film "Satin Rouge," it is really mom who needs watching.
Lilia has untapped beauty and emotions waiting to be unleashed, and actress Hiam Abbass gives us both sides of the woman, from her reticence and plainness to her awakening. It is a very sensitive and well-conceived performance. In checking up on her daughter Salma (Hend El Fahem), Lilia happens to come in contact with the art of belly dancing, and when she curiously visits a cabaret, she is smitten with what she sees. A friendship begins with Folla, one of the dancers, who is played by Monia Hichri, a strikingly unusual looking woman, sort of like a more ample Cher.
Soon Lilia is scantily costumed and undulating with the rest of the quivering ladies. Learning as she goes, she begins to work at the nightspot, having to sneak out of the apartment to do so without the knowledge of her daughter and the neighbors. Abbas shows she can shake it up with the best of them. With an ample figure and a makeover, she becomes especially attractive and is a hit.
There's a musician at the cabaret who attracts her--Chokri, played by good-looking Maher Kamoun--and as it happens, he's the same guy with whom the daughter is in love. You figure out the rest. But count on the film ending with a sophisticated resolution and a new outlook on life for Lilia.
This is a first feature for writer-director Raja Amari, and she does an impressive job of storytelling and endowing her film with visual beauty, a rhythmic aura and a beat that may get a few women wanting to privately try out a few belly dance movements before a mirror, as Lilia first does. The music, whether merely on the soundtrack or accompanying the dancers, is irresistible and the belly dancing itself is an eyeful. Apart from Lilia, the dancers are not beauties, which lends a touch of realism and allows Lilia to stand out in the group.
But most of all, in "Satin Rouge" it is the compelling portrait of a woman coming into her own that makes the film so affecting and pleasing. A Zeitgeist Films release.
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