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Satin
Rouge, 2002, 91 minutes, Not Rated
By Andie Davis
O
world cinéaste, hast thou grown restless in the oasis of Arab cinema?
Art thy gums decaying from the treacle of those cutesy Iranian films?
Hast thy shoulders stooped and thy brow furrowed with angst as brave
burka-clad babes duck oppression and strife rocks yet another casbah?
Dost thou secretly wonder, in unguarded moments, just what regular
folk do when not posing on pedestals?
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Weary traveler, relief is finally here.
Draw nigh and be charmed by Satin Rouge, the latest from Tunisian
director Raja Amari (Mama Africa). At turns poignant, campy,
whimsically erotic and defiantly ordinary, this rare slice of Maghreb
city life burrows deep in the voluptuous folds of the Tunis bellydance
scene. The result? A shimmering, shimmying gem that gracefully skirts
both prudishness and vulgarity - and praises big-belly gals in the
process!
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Frumpy widow Lilia (Hiam Abbass) spends
her days in dutiful solitude before her late husband's photo, tidying
an already tidy house and fretting over her teenage daughter's growing
waywardness. She's convinced that young Salma (a sweetly nuanced Hend
El Fahem) has the hots for Chokri (Mahel Kamoun), a drummer at the
girl's bellydance class. Consumed by worry and boredom one evening,
Lilia tracks Chokri to his night gig in a cabaret. The spectacle she
witnesses there - laughing, bejeweled women swishing beneath yards of
chiffon and pounds of makeup, besotted husbands all too ready to part
with the milk money - proves too much for her and she faints on the
spot. The dancers carry her backstage, where the show's star Folla
(real-life local bellydance star Monia Hichri) revives her and a
friendship begins. Lilia, awed by the bravura of the women, is
gradually seduced by the atmosphere and coaxed from her shell. Before
long, the erstwhile housefrau finds herself onstage, shaking what her
mama - and the occasional buttered baguette - gave her. Meanwhile,
hmm...is that a tabla drum in Chokri's pocket or is he just glad to
see the new Lilia?
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Those bored with
Hollywood's current crop of underfed urchins will no doubt welcome
this cast of sultry, juicy women. Amari's celebration of North African
beauty feels organic and unforced - neither a lumbering challenge to
the Euro aesthetic, nor a pandering come-on to "Arabian
Nights" thrill-seekers. The gently faded splendor of Tunis is
captured with a local's loving but unflinching eye, where palm-lined
piazzas share equal screen time with less tourist-ready back alleys.
The director shows the same assurance in staging the film's earthy
love scenes, a first in Tunisian cinema (but apparently the last straw
for Tunisian critics, who lambasted the film upon its release). It all
adds up to a winning formula: in setting out to prove nothing, Satin
stands only for itself, freeing the narrative to ebb and flow with an
easy, winking charm - characters gossip, try on shoes, play idly with
table fruit, crack bawdy jokes, scold and flirt. And while Lilia
continues to careen bumpily between dignified horror and primal
release a bit too long after her first public hip roll, the jerky
transitions only raise the film's camp factor.
The
dances themselves, for a bellydance movie, are surprisingly tepid. But
then again, very little in this film occurs as expected. Skewering
conventions of piety, grief, teen folly and adult vice with equal
relish, the film's narrative arc turns out to be the most hypnotic
gyration of all. Nowhere is this truer than in the gawk-inducing
ending, an ambiguous tease the screen equivalent of a horizontal
reverse undulation. Like its newly liberated protagonist, Satin seems
to delight in its discovery that freedom is mostly a state of mind.
And that, fellow film junkies, should set us all dancing.
M
August 2002
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