| | |  | DANCE PERFORMANCES | Home » » Satin Rouge | | | | | | | Description: | | A Tunisian widow takes an unlikely journey of self-discovery in Raja Amari's sumptuous and sensual SATIN ROUGE. While investigating a suspected liaison between her headstrong teenaged daughter and a cabaret musician, Lilia becomes drawn to an exhilarating nightclub netherworld of Rubenesque belly dancers and nocturnal pleasure-seekers. In trading her shapeless housedresses for sequins and satin, she begins to emerge from her cocoon of melancholy and loneliness. Writer-director Amari's tale of liberation recalls Douglas Sirk's 1950s suburban melodramas as it also paints a distinctly modern portrait of Arab women. | | | Product Details: | | | Actors:
| Hiam Abbass, Hend El Fahem, Maher Kamoun, Monia Hichri, Faouzia Badr | | Director:
| Raja Amari | | Format:
| Anamorphic, Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC | | Language:
| Arabic, French | | Subtitle:
| English | | Number of Discs:
| 1 | | Studio:
| Zeitgeist Films | | Run Time:
| 95 minutes | | DVD Release Date:
| May 27, 2003 | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 16 reviews |
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| $12.68 | Used
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| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
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 Fun and fascinatingNov 13, 2009
I enjoyed this movie. The slow pace of development meant I really needed to hang in to see the line of the story. It gets better.
Watching the characters develop through both dance and life experiences is the highlight of the movie. It's dance with a twist.
jihana
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 Great Belly Dance dramaFeb 18, 2007
I loved the reality of this story. Most of us who belly dance can relate to being an average Jane during the day and a Belly Dancing goddess at night. It has a few unexpected twists and hypnotic dance scenes at the casbah. With real life situations and cultural taboo being a big part of the story it remained intriguing until the very end.
4 of 5 found the following review helpful:
Releasing Her Hidden Flame - Igniting Her Inner PassionsNov 21, 2006
Lilia is an attractive widow, apparently in her early 40s who lives an upstanding conservative lifestyle in a city of Tunisia. She is a seamstress who also does knitting on the side to keep herself occupied. Her husband has been gone for many years and her lack of companionship and boredom is evident. When cleaning her apartment, she plays Arabic music and dances sensuosly while watching herself in the mirror. It is clear she is ripe for some adventure ...
She is raising a teenage daughter, Salma, who uses the excuse of studying with a girlfriend to secretly meet for a triste with her boyfriend, a nightclub musician with whom she is in love. During a phone call to her mother, Lilia hears music in the background played at a girl friend's birthday party. Lilia realizes the importance of protecting her daughter from unsavory influences within the conservative Arabic culture in which they live. She thinks her daughter may have gone with friends to the local cabaret. Lilia goes there to find her ....
Lilia is transfixed within this forbidden environment. She is fascinated watching the lead belly dancer perform for a mostly male clientele who are appreciative and moved to a passionate frenzy. Her conservative upbringing clashes with what she sees which seems to express her repressed desires ... She faints. Lilia awakens in the dressing room of the performers. She admires their sequined costumes and low cut flimsy silk flowing skirts styled in the harem fashion ... She is invited back for a visit and is treated like a guest. Later, Lilia receives dance lessions from the lead belly dancer and obtains a very beautiful belly dance outfit. She is encouraged to wear it and dance at the cabaret ... She keeps this aspect of her life secret from her daughter and neighbors. A neighbor lady friend admonishes Lilia to keep a closer watch on Salma who is returning home during late hours. Lilia agrees to do this and notes the teenager years are the most difficult ... An Uncle visits from the village. He tries to persuade Lilia to return there, to cut herself off from the modern influences of television where women are behaving immodeslty ... Tthe Uncle has not a clue about Lilia's secret hobby ...
Lilia awes the crowd of men at the cabaret and is especially attracted to the darbouk player named Choki ...The manager of the cabaret wants Lilia to meet a customer with implications for possible improper behavior. Lilia is introduced to the man, who admires her dancing and invites her to his villa. At just the right moment, Choki comes to her rescue excusing Lilia on the grounds that her husband, a karate expert would not approve. Lilia ends up going home with the darbouk player and engaging in a passionate affair. On screen, using only artistic close up shots, the act of making love is conveyed without being offensive. Within a few days Choki breaks off the affair without explanation.
Not long afterwards, Salma becomes engaged to her musician boyfriend whom she introduces to her mother for the first time. They plan to wed. Lilia provides no hint that she knows him. At their wedding, Lilia dances provacatively before the couple, clearly sending body signals to the groom. The viewer is left to ponder how the events of the past will affect the future happiness of this couple. Salma is totally in the dark about the brief affair between Lilia and Choki. Neither one of them knew how each was connected with Salma and her future happiness. This most astonishing film tackles a complex issue which essentially remains unresolved ... the future is uncertain. It is highly worth viewing. Erika Borsos (pepper flower)
12 of 14 found the following review helpful:
 So this is why belly dancers are sometimes called "The Flowers of the Desert"Jun 16, 2006
This movie started off somewhat languidly, and lulls you into a sleepy mood but then picks up towards the middle. This Tunisian movie portrays the woman as liberated from the traditions, religion, and social conformism, as opposed to women in some other Arabic/Muslim countries. People might think this country is located in the Middle East but is in North Africa.
What makes "Satin Rouge" an adorable film is that Director Amari uses the belly-dancing element to explore the prevailing social values and to comment on the emotional numbness of modern life. Hiam Abbass as Lilia is a beautiful lady whose appearance and character grows as she goes out at night. The sets and the costume are well placed, and the dance scenes are a pleasure to the eye. The plot of the romance is well developed, as it takes twists and turns before it irons itself out.
This film had kept my interest and could have gone either two ways. It could have ended either comically or tragically. There are certainly laughs along the way, but in a nervous way. In any case, "Satin Rouge" does offer a pleasurable dance into another culture that just might appeal to you.
8 of 12 found the following review helpful:
Come to the Cabaret !Mar 02, 2006
Lilia (Hiam Abbass) is a lonely bored widow living within the confines of the social order in Tunisia. She lives for her beautiful young daughter, Salma (Hend Al Fahem): coddling her, doing for her, worrying about her and basically smothering her. As most young girls everywhere do...Salma rebels and begins to date and bed a cabaret/belly dancing musician, Chokri (Maher Kahoun). Lilia finds out, follows Chokri to the cabaret and basically finds herself: she befriends a wild Tunisian belly dancer, learns to dance, cuts her hair, buys modern clothing and shoes and makes a life for herself.
Director Raja Amari's mise en scene is filled with movement, color and life very much in line with the Mira Nair's view of the world: it's basically a drag but when it gets you down...just P-A-R-T-Y!!! Many scenes in "Satin Rouge" (red satin) remind me very much of Nair's gorgeous "Monsoon Wedding" as both films deals with repressive societies in which dance and music serve as sexual and social palliatives particularly for the women.
"Red Satin" is a well made, smart and knowing film. It tugs at your heart and nourishes your soul: what more can you ask?
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