With Caramel, you can almost feel the heat. But it’s not just the atmospheric emanations of a Lebanese summer. In a delicious debut feature which was the sleeper hit last year at Cannes, a beauty salon is the heart and soul community center for five women of contemporary Beirut. The lives and loves, the ages and stages, of Layale, Nisrine, Rima, Rose and Jamale, as well as their cosmetological challenges and triumphs, are rendered sweetly, as a narrative confection, and peeled away with a rip of recognition, like sugar waxing with caramel.

With Nadine Labaki, Yasmine al Masri, Joanna Moukauzel, Siham Haddad and Gisele Aouad, (Lebanon/France, 2007. 95 min., in Arabic with English subtitles.) – G.R.

This screening made possible by the generous support of Sally Stewart of Southern Exposure Salon & Day Spa.