Ladri di biciclet

This is one of my favourite genres, "realism". What I liked about this film is the fact that there was a plot , a man searching for his stolen bike that he needed for his job, but what was really going on in the film were the things outside the plot, like the daily encounters. The background happenings were both real and amusing and they were daily life sort of things. It reminded me a little bit of broken flowers by "Jim Jarmush". The little boy was adorable. Eventhough the film was about desperation, about suffering and pain it didn't fail to have its humorous moments.

The father son relationship was very intense, real, emotional and very endearing. The restaurant scene was one of my favourites. It showed something about human nature and how children can be. Children's spontanoutity makes us see raw humanity without pretensiousness, and in this scene we see how the rich kid is showing off with his mozzerella, and how excited the little boy got when he had opportunity to eat the mozzarella like the rich kid.

This scene also shows father son realitonships in its purest and most sincere level, they even had their little secret (the little boy got to drink wine).

Caramel

It was a really moving film and I related to many parts of it becasue I'm also an arab female.

Lebanon is much like Egypt in many ways. I didn't know that Lebanese women resorted to hymen reconstruction like Egyptians but obviously it does happen there.

The story of Layaly (Nadine Labbaky's charachter) was very real and I liked the fact that the "other" woman was not depicted as a villain. She was a woman in love with a married man and it was tortourous.

On their anniversary, she put so much effort in trying to rent a room for them, and that process was very hard because in arab countries a couple can't rent a room if they're not married. She eneded up renting a room in a whorehouse, or a smewhere slightly like it. She scraped the floors, changed the bedcovers and turned that filthy place into a beautiful place with balloons and even a cake... but all her efforts went in vain because he never showed up. Waiting by her silent cellphone on the empty bed, there was desperation in her eyes. Her lover bailed on her and I don't think he would've ever recognized or even appreciated all her efforts. I think the fact that the viewer never saw his face and even when he appeared it was only from his back was very effective. It represented how absent he was and even if he was there as a lover he was just like a ghost that is there in spirit, in the mind and in the heart but lacking in actual presence.

The encounter of wife and mistress was very intense, especially that it included waxing. It represents the aching that comes out of love and how women hate each other when they feel threatened but at the same time they relate to one another and in a way, have the same fears and go through exactly the same heartache.

The scene where the wife was telling Layaly that she wanted to make something special for her husband on their anniversary and then she was thinking if there's someting missing and sudenly mentioned that she still had to purchase balloons made me stop for a moment.... Even Layaly who bottled up rage and hate for the wife, for a moment there sympathized because she's been there.

Then she asked Layaly if that would make him happy... because that what she wanted to do for him, make him happy.

This is such a typical Middle Eastern problem, women take extreme measures in making unappreciative men happy... but to no avail....

I know that not every single case is not like that but it is a common Middle Eastern problem.

This film beautifully showes the frustrations of Middle Eastern women, and the sexual suppression, the restrictions of society and their hidden lives.

It consisted of a lot blabbering and women talk, which might not be appealing to male audiences, but this gave the film that touch of "realism", it didn't look made up and fake, for all I know, they could've been improvising.

It told the stories of everyday miseries, they things that go by, the things that we live by, the things we just let pass by.

In one of the last scenes, where the long haired customer runs around the street with her new short haircut represented for me freedom and going out of one's way. The little things we use as acts of rebellion and how when how we feel like we can conquer the world when we do them.