You won't be disappointed!

Don't Believe the Hype

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

"What is a Mum?" a British television advertisement once famously asked - the answer (in the 1950s) was someone who cooked for her family, washed their clothes cleaner than anyone else and was an attractive help mate for Dad.A (modest Tunisian widowed) Mum we are asked to believe, ditches 40 years of ingrained modesty and glides without too much difficulty into shaking her booty for a male audience at a sleazy club where patrons arrange sexual liaisons with the dancers. That she starts an affair with one of the musicians, perhaps 15 years her junior, who in turn dates her daughter and that she coolly and with utter poise deals with this novel highly delicate and unconventional situation. And finally at her daughter's wedding Mum dances erotically for her son-in-law/lover and all's well that ends well.The over extended soft porn love-making scene between Mum and future son-in-law rather gives the game away - the Tunisian director wants to demonstrate that her film (and liberated Tunisians) need cede little in terms of liberation to modern day France. Additionally it is sending a message that Tunisian women brought up in traditional ways can instantly and deftly adopt very sophisticated attitudes disregarding binding religious and cultural taboos both privately and in public.For those Tunisians who admire European sexual liberation and female emancipation it is presumably a brave landmark film and a blow struck against the old ways.As a window on modern Tunisia it seems unconvincing even nonsensical however well shot and in the case of Mum, charmingly acted.

If you have a fondness of belly dancers like I do me, than this is an excellent movie. This movie has a perfect presentation of belly dancing in the Middle Eastern world. To me belly dancing is more than just a dance. It is a beautiful culture. Belly dancing is glamorous, sensual and mysterious. Belly dancers where such beautiful costumes and have such beautiful and sensual movements movements. That is why belly dancers are sometimes called "The flowers of the desert". This movie is about Lilia a depressed single mother and widow with a teenage daughter. One night Lilia who one night walks into a cabaret where belly dancers perform. Lilia befriends one of the dancers. Lilia tries one a belly dance costume and the belly dancer that Lilia has befriended talks her into performing at the cabaret and Lilia becomes one of the regular belly dance performers. Lilia is also able to relieve herself of her melancholy by letting herself go. So this film shows that belly dancing can have great mental benefits as well as great physical benefits. So if you like belly dancers than I certainly recommend this movie.

As a gay man, I feel that "Satin Rouge" has a very gay sensibility. Anyone who has ever braved society's strictures to come out of the closet will have a visceral understanding of what Lilia goes through as she voyages from the purdah of widowhood to the freedom of belly dancing in a cabaret.I kept wondering how "Satin Rouge" would look and feel if the film had been made by another director in another country. Specifically, I found "Satin Rouge" and its characters very reminiscent of Pedro Almodovar (whose work also has a gay sensibility). If the film had been made in the United States, it would probably have to have a gay male lead character coming out into drag. I really can't compare the belly dancers of Tunisia -- at least as they are presented in "Satin Rouge" to anything other than American drag queens. To have the main character take up stripping in a nightclub, or hooking on the streets, would not be at all the same.In any case, "Satin Rouge" kept my interest up right to the very end. It was the kind of movie that could have gone either of two ways. It could have ended both comically and tragically. There are certainly laughs along the way, but some of them were nervous laughs. I won't spoil your viewing pleasure by telling you how the movie finally turns out.

"Satin Rouge" is an obscure movie from Tunisia, but well worth a look. The story has Hiyam Abbas as Lilia, a widowed seamstress who breaks out of her shell and joins the glittery world of belly dancing. This movie seems to catch the essence of the dancer, how Middle Eastern society views her, and how she feels about the dance. "Satin Rouge" may not present a complete catalogue of belly dance moves, but what there is one might find very entertaining. On the whole, "Satin Rouge" offers a colorful look into another culture, making for a pleasurable dance.