If you are looking for films through Jaman, I have to slowly work through the titles myself.
However, I can recommend "Caramel" -- it's a bit of a Lebanese soap opera, peering into the lives of each of the women who work at a local beauty salon. The entire cast is gorgeous, especially the film's director and lead actress, Nadine Labaki. Beirut used to be known as the Paris of the Middle East . . . so, there's a premium placed on looking attractive and being fashionable in this culture.
On a wholly unrelated tangent, I was astonished how Islamic and Christian culture flows straight through the day-to-day activities of people in Lebanon and no one really bats an eyelash. Hmm, not exactly the picture I get of the country when I open an American newspaper.
The characters in Caramel represent very different women: straight and desperately looking in all the wrong places, straight and getting hitched (but with a slight wrinkle in the equation), senior and still susceptible to Cupid's arrow, menopausal and resisting it all the way, gay and getting better acquainted with the fact.
The men are a bit in the periphery of this film but the emphasis here is on the innate sensuality that women bring into their experience, whether its through the comfort of their friendships or in that precarious zone of romance. The scene of the ladies preparing the sugar mix, the Caramel of the movie title, for their clients in the mood for a wax job says everything you need to know: They're wrapping the soft gobs around their fingers and eating it with pleasure while moments later, they're peeling it off the skins of women who flinch and wince in pain. Plastic surgery, wax jobs, . . . the price of beauty is pretty steep.
I finished reading "The Kite Runner" earlier this year but a colleague of mine says this movie is definitely worth checking out. I've seen clips of it and thought the general public didn't give it a fair shake. However, you now have a chance to download it through Jaman so let us know your opinion by writing a review . . . .
