Rating: 
Summary: "awesome", "awesome" ,"awesome"!!
Review: "Great movie", though it goes against what I strive to educate my dance students on the ethics of Belly Dance and how it is not intended to be performed souly for a mans pleasure. It does speak to many women striving to overcome their cacoon of melancholy and hidden passions. Believe me ladies, this one will make you want to dance and appreciate your body as it is! This movie was enspiring and did not stereotype what a Belly dancer should look like, the music will move you and the story is spirited.
Bahijha
Rating: 
Summary: some things I just felt like saying about "Satin"
Review: "Great movie", though it goes against what I strive to educate my dance students on the ethics of Belly Dance and how it is not intended to be performed souly for a mans pleasure. It does speak to many women striving to overcome their cacoon of melancholy and hidden passions. Believe me ladies, this one will make you want to dance and appreciate your body as it is! This movie was enspiring and did not stereotype what a Belly dancer should look like, the music will move you and the story is spirited.
Bahijha
Rating:
Summary: "awesome", "awesome" ,"awesome"!!
Review: "Great movie", though it goes against what I strive to educate my dance students on the ethics of Belly Dance and how it is not intended to be performed souly for a mans pleasure. It does speak to many women striving to overcome their cacoon of melancholy and hidden passions. Believe me ladies, this one will make you want to dance and appreciate your body as it is! This movie was enspiring and did not stereotype what a Belly dancer should look like, the music will move you and the story is spirited.
Bahijha
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful belly dancing, hilarious scenes, great story!
Review: I'm a belly dance instructor, and saw this movie in the theatre because I'd read the favorable press reviews about it. The movie's website contains some interesting interviews with the producers and background info about the movie. If you are a belly dancer, you need to see this movie! It has lovely dance scenes woven into the storyline. This film was produced by a woman, and is geared towards women. A lot of the humor will especially be appreciated by women. I went with a large group of women to see it at the theatre, and the women (belly dancers), all loved it. The men were less enthusiastic, since it really is more of a woman's film. Five stars!
Rating:
Summary: Astounding
Review: In the film, "Satin Rouge" widow Lilia (Hiyam Abbas) lives with her only daughter, Salma (Hend El Fahem) in a small apartment. Lilia does a little seamstress work, but most of her day is spent cleaning, watching mindless television programmes, and waiting for her daughter to come home. Salma attends classes, and she rebels against her mother's affections and expectations by trying to establish a social life away from home. Salma is increasingly more distant, and offering more and more excuses for her unexplained absences. Lilia tracks down the cause of her daughte's distraction and learns that Salma is seeing a musician, Chokri (Maher Kamoun). Lilia follows Chokri one day, and she's led to a nightclub. She wanders inside and slips into the seductive world of belly dancing.
Fans of belly dancing should love this film. It's filled with scene after colourful scene of the evenings spent in the club. These scenes are juxtaposed by the grey sterility of Lilia's other life--the interfering, nosy neighbours, and a brother who keeps a watchful, condemning eye on Lilia. People in Lilia's life seem to be troubled that she's a woman without a man to look after her, to guide her, and to keep her in line, so they feel extremely comfortable intruding, offering comments and judgments that pass as helpful advice. In contrast, Lilia's life as a cabaret belly dancer is free from such restraints. In the club, she is a powerful, desirable woman coveted by the male audience. She can rev them up to fever pitch, but she always remains in control.
The film emphasizes the sisterhood of the women in the nightclub. Lilia receives encouragement from these bold women--especially from the glittering, self-possessed, Folla (Monia Hichri). These dancers are not the sort to stay at home and accept the roles meted out to them, and Lilia learns some invaluable lessons in survival techniques from her fellow dancers. Ultimately, Lilia's game is a complicated one, and the film's message resonates long after the final credits roll. "Satin Rouge" is a Tunisian film from female director, Raja Amari. The film is in French and Arabic with English subtitles--displacedhuman
Rating: 
Summary: A must for all belly dancers
Review: It was great to see an authentic belly dancing story. I'm a bellydancer who has over five years of performing experience, and I was delighted to have the opportunity to see a Tunesian story about a belly dancer. Unfortunately, the film confirmed my suspicion that belly dancers in the Middle East are what strippers are to the West. It is clear early in the film that a "respectable" woman wouldn't belly dance, and the many scenes in the cabaret confirm my analogy is correct. In the final scene, the middle-aged heroine is looking foolish as she belly dances desperately to seek attention. I was expecting a story of feminine empowerment, and I got the opposite. As well, I was expecting great dance scenes, and again I got the opposite. As far as the story goes, the film's director underestimates the viewers' intelligence. That said, it would be absolutely crazy for any belly dancer to pass this movie up. Authentic dancing in its native cultural setting is something so few of us ever get to experience. It's worth it just for that education. Although it wasn't what I hoped for, it was engaging and entertaining, and the music was great. Finally, the subtitles were well displayed and easy to read.
Rating:
Summary: some things I just felt like saying about "Satin"
Review: Lilia, a widowed mother, endures a painfully lonely and boring life in modern-day Tunisia. Her empty existence (punctuated by infrequent visits from extended family members, and nearly as infrequent interludes with her daughter, Salmah) involves little more than keeping her apartment neat and tidy - you'd almost think she were a ghost who'd forgotten she was no longer alive. That is...until the sounds of her TV and her busy city are suddenly drowned out by an Arabic song - an Arabic crooner, some chords of an oud and the beat of a drum - and Lilia gives briefly herself to the music. Mostly, Lilia worries about Salmah - a blossoming young woman whom Lilia realizes is hiding something. At first thinking the secret is a new boyfriend, Lilia finds Salmah in bellydancing classes, and begins to think that the secret is not a new boyfriend (like the admirer who plays Darabouka in Salmah's classes) but a new job working the floors of some seedy cabaret. In search of Salmah, Lilia sneaks into the nearest smoke-filled cabaret, finding, not Salmah nor any of the younger girls with whom Salmah shared her time or her dancing. Over-glammed up, with costumes to match, the dancers of "Satin Rouge" are more like glamorous variations on Lilia - Past their prime, older than they could be and still hope to turn their art into stardom. They will never be confused with those dancers made famous in decades of Arabic movies - but once on the floor, the Women of "Satin Rouge" make up for it on gallons of unleaded oomph - following the darabouka beat (played by the same boy who sets the rhythm at Salmah's classes and, ironically enough really is her boyfriend). Immediately befriended by the other dancers, Lilia remains aloof at first, but also entranced, following a path guaranteed to bring her to the floor as the new star. At first volunteering to sew costumes for other dancers, she's caught by her new friends trying one of them on - giving her friends all the excuse they need to "unveil" her to their world. In a sensual surprise, Lilia can move, but does so artlessly (the gruff boss says she has movement, but no art). Still, in the smoky backroom that is the cabaret, she proves popular enough to be kept on until she can refine her foot & hip work. Forgetting most of her worries about Salmah (now that she has a secret of her own) Lilia begins a double life - housewife by day, cabaret star at night. In the movie's running joke, Lilia assumes the existence she had imagined for Salmah, yet continues to chide the younger girl for coming home way after midnight - Salmah having no idea that her mother had only returned a short time earlier. As the story progresses, Lilia will blossom and find a way to enjoy her life. To get the most of "Satin Rouge", you must remember what the movie is not - it's not meant to judge Lilia as much as mark how she changes. "Satin" says little about women in the near-east (filmed in liberal Tunis, the movie shows us openly affectionate and un-veiled women walking the streets of their city, sometimes alone or at night - Kabul it's not). Though Lilia's life is clearly unfulfilled, little in the script clarifies the comparative strength of men, since there are so few male characters, and few really do anything that really drives the story. Though focused on bellydancers, "Satin" doesn't judge or clarify what the dance really means - fitting neither Hollywood's ideal (in which gauzy-dressed girls danced for men) nor the neo-feminist perspective (which - despite glittery and revealing costumes, unabashedly sensual movements and the secondary status endured by women in those countries identified with the dance - still views the dance as an art form and entertainment for women that empowers them and traces its origins to cultures dominated by them). While "Satin" says little about the cultural merits of the east and west, it does get its point across - contrasting the misery Lilia endures while a western-style TV soap opera blares through her apartment, against the liberated passions she feels whenever a song with a good beat comes over the radio. Lilia enjoys the dance because it is the only thing she can do that people seem to enjoy (her dancing friends aside everybody hates her sewing, and nobody's interested in her cooking). Nor is "Satin" about how beautiful you can become when you pull yourself out of your shell - played by Hiam Abbas, Lilia is at least as attractive as her new friends at the outset (if plainly so). When first entering the cabaret - still very much the cloistered and house-dressed widow approaching mid-age - the men swarm over her, undistracted by the performing dancers. "Satin" is best viewed as the story of a woman who already has power and beauty, but seems lost to the world until she finds the right beat.
Rating:
Summary: Exciting and clever
Review: This has been one of my favorite films since I saw it in the movie theater a couple of years ago. The plot is very clever, the movie is very well-acted, the characters are interesting, and the caberet scenes are full of primal enthusiasm and excitement. The transformation of character that the heroine undergoes during the course of the story is fascinating. Fans of middle-eastern music and bellydance will love this film. BUT, there is an unfortunate drawback to the DVD version. The soundtrack is not synchronized properly with the video portion of the film. It's about half-second or more behind the action in the film. This can be distracting at times and detracts from the appeal of the film. I sent a message of complaint about this to Zeitgeist Films but I did not get a reply. It's very unfortunate that the people at Zeitgeist did not take the care to sync the soundtrack properly.
Rating:
Summary: You can't miss it!
Review: This movie is a wonderfull piece, one of the best foreign movies recently made. The story is rich and the dance scenes simply real and amazing. It shows how can any womam change her life into a more fullfilling existence in any stage of her life. And yes, bellydancing can be a liberating and empowering experience to all of us. A must for all bellydancers!
Rating:
Summary: loved it
Review: This movie is of a genre which I don't really enjoy all that much, but I truly enjoyed this. There are very few films that show middle aged women in a sexual way, and when they do it's either because they're made to look more like 17 year olds than their age, or their sexuality is made to look like a big joke. This film shows a middle aged widow with a college-aged daughter rediscovering her sexuality. I gave it 4 stars and not 5 only because the mother has a relationship with the daughter's boyfriend which comes off as a little wacky, but don't let that stop you from watching this movie. The glimpse it provides of North African Arabic culture is also interesting.
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