Stereotypes about the Middle East are everywhere in the West these days, so it's always a joy when someone decides to give us a fresh perspective. Think of Mideastern women, and the first image we're inclined to think of is a chador or burqa, the female forced to cover her hair, her limbs, perhaps even her face, by a male-dominated society.
Director Nadine Labaki's "Caramel," a Lebanese chick flick, glances at that image and brushes right by it, with chin held high and teased hair flowing, leaving behind an afterburn of rosewater and pheromones. Appropriately enough, this portrait of modern, more or less liberated Lebanese women, is set in a beauty salon.
Labaki herself stars as Layale, a single woman in her 30s who's the owner of a small salon called Si Belle in downtown Beirut. Unusually, for a Lebanese film, "Caramel" avoids any discussion of the country's decades of conflict; this is a forward-looking, optimistic film. But the aftereffects of war can be glimpsed all around, not least in Layale's storefront, where the the neon sign has a few letters missing or falling off. Electrical power cuts out at least once a day, and Layale's butch co-worker Rima (Joanna Moukarzel) has to go out back and rev up the backup generator, while everyone's blow-dries come to a halt.