Satin Rouge - A film by Raja Amari
Lilia - Hiam Abbass, Salma - Hend El Fahem, Chokri - Maher Kamoun, Folla - Monia Hichri, The neighbor - Faouzia Badr, Hela - Nadra Lamloum, The boss - Abou Moez El Fazaa, Béchir - Salah Miled
Written and Directed by Raja Amari, Cinematographer - Diane Baratier, Sound - Frédéric De Ravignan, Set Designer - Kaïs Rostom, Editor - Pauline Dairou, 1st Assistant Director - Pamela Varela, Script - Saïda Ben Mahmoud, Sound Editor - Thomas Robert, Sound Mixer - Cyril Holtz, Costume Designer - Magdalena Garcia Caniz, Original Music - Nawfel El Manaa
Produced
by ADR PRODUCTIONS (Alain Rozanes & Pascal Verroust), NOMADIS IMAGES (Dora
Bouchoucha Fourati), Arte France Cinéma, l'Agence Nationale de Promotion
de l'Audiovisuel-Tunisie (A.N.P.A).
With the participation of Canal Plus, Ministère de la Culture Tunisien.
With the support of Fonds Francophone de Production Audiovisuelle du Sud (agence
intergouvernementale de la Francophonie and CIRTEF),
Centre National de la Cinématographie and Ministère des Affaires
Etrangères, Fondation Gan pour le Cinéma, Procirep and Femis.
Running time: 91 mins, Arabic with English subtitles
France/Tunisia
| 2002 | 35mm
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Sound: Dolby SRD
A widowed Tunisian seamstress takes an unlikely journey of self-discovery in writer- director Raja Amari's sumptuous and sensual SATIN ROUGE. While investigating a suspected liaison between her headstrong teenaged daughter and a cabaret musician, young widow Lilia becomes drawn to an exotic nightclub netherworld of Rubénesque belly dancers and nocturnal pleasure- seekers. She strikes up a friendship with one of the dancers, then eventually takes the stage herself-quickly becoming the favorite of both cabaret patrons and the club's hot-blooded drummer. As she gradually sheds her shapeless, matronly housedresses for the flamboyantly sequined bar-girl garb, she also begins to emerge from her cocoon of melancholy and loneliness. Variety critic David Stratton compares Amari's tale to Douglas Sirk's American suburban melodramas of the 1950s (particularly ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS) calling the film a "handsomely produced and exhilarating romantic drama."
In this very impressive film from Tunisia, Lilia is a still-attractive woman with a teenage daughter, Salma. Lilia lives a rather sad existence, obsessively cleaning her house, watching television, and eating alone while Salma hangs out with friends. When Lilia goes to check out the place where Salma goes to dancing class she suspects - rightly - that her daughter is involved with a musician. But it's Lilia whose life is changed by her contacts with a world she knows nothing about - a world of nightclubs where belly dancers perform. The director of Satin Rouge, Raja Amari, is thirty and she follows in the footsteps of her compatriot Moufida Tlatli in exploring the sexual roles women play in Tunisia. The spirit of Douglas Sirk and his 1955 film All That Heaven Allows hovers over this story of a lonely woman who finds an unexpected, unorthodox and exhilirating way to dispel her loneliness, and Hiam Abass is superb as the woman in question.
Reviewed by David
Stratton