In English, there is something called a “poster child.” Originally, the phrase “poster child” came from when a child in pain was put on a poster to help raise money for a cure to a disease; nowadays, a poster child is used to describe any person who is used to promote a cause. As a simple example, during the 2008 presidential elections, Obama was called a “poster child” because he was a regarded as evidence that America had moved past racial discrimination.

Nadine Labaki of Lebanon, after international and sensational reviews of her 2007 movie Caramel, is said to be the poster child of the Middle East. She is an incredible woman in the Middle East. People may have thought that by praising this woman, they could show concern for issues of Middle Eastern women.

Obama has successfully guided America by way of four years of political achievements. He bravely addressed difficult issues that many in America wished to see resolved such as nationwide health insurance, the legalization of same-sex marriage, and the stabilization of international relations. Not many people nowadays would say that they either support or hate Obama because he is black. At least I haven’t met these kind of people. Because of his achievements, Obama is respected as a human. Now, after four years, Obama is no longer a poster child.

Alternatively, what about Nadine Labaki? Her maiden’s work Caramel is the bittersweet perspective of women’s stories of passion and love. It is an undeniably pleasant movie. Her challenge was where she could go with her second work. Her second piece Where Do We Go Now? depicts the religious antagonism of Lebanon.

Five years after her first movie, Nadine Labaki appeared in an interview after the filming of her second movie, radiantly beautiful as before. However, in five years, there was a very important change in her. She had married composer Khaled Mouzanar and become a mother, and she was full of the confidence of a woman and of a mother. “Lebanon was in pieces from the war. I made this movie to ask whether mothers can protect their children from being taken away to war,” she said.

One more difference was that her English had improved significantly. In her interview for Caramel, she spoke in broken English and seemed frustrated that she could not speak as fluently as if she were talking in Arabic or French. By this interview five years later, though, she was able to converse quite fluently. She talked 10 times or even 100 times more when presented with a question. Without Labaki’s permission, her husband Khaled Mouzanar suddenly snatched the microphone from her, saying condescendingly, “I’m sorry, my wife is a little too talkative. Moreover, somewhat schizophrenic.”

The criticism of her husband about her being “too talkative and schizophrenic” unexpectedly summarizes the shortcomings of Where Do We Go Now?. The theme in this movie is that, when men might become violent because of religious conflict, the women can use their wit to try to prevent it. The chattering of women continues through the chaos as various people appear one after another, making it hard to follow the characters; somehow romance happens, and the women bring Ukrainian dancers to the village to keep the men’s eyes from violence. The boring story digresses and keeps going on and on. When the movie is close to the end, it seems as if the director thought, “Shoot! I have to wrap it up!” The women (Christian and Muslim women on good terms) hurriedly feed the men cake with hashish (cannabis), and, while the men sleep, the women secretly hide the weapons in a hole. The women at the end of the movie hope that the violence will not happen for a while. “The women are the ones who have to grieve and bury their loved ones after the men fight” is the message of this movie. The movie was a mix of drama, tragedy, comedy, and even musical.

The theme is that the women conspire to keep the men from war, like the Ancient Greek comedy, Lysistrata. In fact, many movie critics discuss this movie in comparison with Lysistrata. Nadine Labaki said that she didn’t actually have this Greek comedy in mind, and I think this is true. I think it was a natural result of Labaki’s character when making a movie with the theme of war.

Her talent or perhaps her spirit shines fully with Caramel, where the chatter jumps among the women endlessly, but perhaps serious themes like war and religious opposition don’t suit her well. Furthermore, she doesn’t really seem to be interested in those kinds of themes. Political themes are not exactly her cup of tea. To put it most simply, this movie wants to say, “If each woman can suppress the aggression of her husband and children, who knows? Maybe we can get rid of war from this world.” At first glance, this movie seems to take the stance that war can possibly be stopped by women opposing it and that though it may be difficult, it’s worth trying. But this is not the case. This difference draws the criticism that this movie does not offer a solution. No one has a clear solution for the future direction of Lebanon. This criticism from some viewers stems from their realization of the director’s limitations with this subject. This movie is light like Caramel. This lightness is due to Labaki’s personality, for better or for worse, and not due to any restrictions by the government.

When an interviewer said, “Your song and dance in the movie was really beautiful,” she replied, modest as always, “I’m not good at singing.” Her dance is not so much of a dance nor is it artistic as she moves her body lightly. At this point, her husband who was in charge of the music of the movie, again abruptly snatched the mic and said, “I don’t like her voice, so I insisted that we find someone to dub over her. We did a lot of auditions for a woman singer, but she wasn’t satisfied with any of them and decided to use her own voice. But I had a lot of difficulty and had to use a lot of acoustic tricks so that her voice didn’t sound funny.” To which she seemed to say with her face, “You shouldn’t have exposed so much.” After hearing this, I worried, “I hope they didn’t fight over this later.”

After finishing watching this movie, I honestly wasn’t able to shake the feeling that Nadine Labaki is still a poster child. However, it isn’t that she doesn’t have talent. She is the sole renowned female director and top actress in the extremely weak film world of Lebanon. Having become such an important woman in a single swoop, it may be difficult now to take honest criticism. But I hope she listens to these critiques, gives young people opportunities, and contributes to the development of the film industry of Lebanon.

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Caramel depicts the friendship between five women—three young women working at a beauty parlor in a poor neighborhood of Lebanon’s capital Beirut, a middle-aged starlet customer, and an elderly tailor woman—and each of their love stories. This beauty parlor friendship is reminiscent of the American film Steel Magnolias and it captures a woman’s point of view well. Why does a beauty parlor become the setting of the story of friendship between women?

First, a beauty parlor is a place just for women. With the absence of men, the women who usually exercise restraint around men can express their true feelings. Usually devoted to their parents, husband, and children, this place is where women are the center of attention as a customer. Also, a beautician is not managed by a male boss and is valued for her specialized skills. Furthermore, since the female customers of this place must expose their flaws that they normally conceal—wrinkles, blemishes, grey hairs, or thinning hair—they do not feel like they have to conceal their own private life, weaknesses, and worries anymore to the beautician who knows their flaws; perhaps they can share their true feelings and a sisterhood may develop.

While Japanese women also believe that “the hair is the life of the woman,” it seems that Middle Eastern women especially believe in this. When I started living in America, I attended an English class where there were women from different foreign countries. There was another Japanese woman—pretty, young, and with long hair—as well as some women from the Middle East—Egypt, Iran, etc. One day, when the Japanese woman began to say, “My hair care method is…” the Middle Eastern women, who until then seemed bored holding their children and uninterested in the conversation, suddenly get up from the sofa and practically cast their children aside, scooting closer to the Japanese woman to ask, “Please tell me your secret!!” In the end, her secret to beautiful hair was to eat seaweed every day, to which everyone responded, “Oh…” with a look of disappointment. Even now, I remember how the light of their eyes full of lively curiosity quickly faded.

To Japanese people, all Arab countries and the Middle East are seen as more-or-less the same and there is the image that women conceal their body and wear a veil, but Middle Eastern countries each have their own unique culture and history. Turkey and Iran certainly possess their own long-lasting traditions and refined culture, but so does Lebanon. Overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, Lebanon trades with countries in both northern Africa and southern Europe and there have been many Christians there from ancient times; also, Lebanon was under French control in recent years so formed strong relations with southern Europe. In particular, since this movie’s protagonists are Christian, they do not have to wear a veil and display their beauty freely.

In addition, people tend to think of Lebanon as a country of war. This is historically true and there was a war between Lebanon and Israel in 2006, around the time this movie was made. However, there is no hint of war in this movie at all. The beautiful Nadine Labaki played the lead role in, wrote the screenplay for, and directed this movie. Her intention was, “I don’t want people to merely see Lebanon as a country of war. Just like other humans, we have ordinary lives with the struggles of love that anyone encounters. I want people to see us as we truly are.” Certainly in this movie, there are common worries for women such as adultery, the fear of growing old, the pressure from society to be chaste, yearning romantically for other women, the obligation of having to care for their family, and anxieties over their marriage. However, the uniqueness of the Lebanese women in this movie can be seen in the background; they fear that war may reach their streets again at any time and, as Christians living among Muslims, they are tangled between European culture and Muslim culture.

The Phoenicians were Lebanon indigenes who invented the Phoenician alphabet that became the basis for the Hebrew, Greek, and Arabic alphabets. After that, this area was conquered by Arabians from the east in the 7th century. Afterwards, this area gained autonomy from the ruling Ottoman Empire, and Christianity from the west was also influential. After Turkey was defeated in World War I, this land became a mandated territory of France due to the Sykes-Picot Agreement. France ruled over Tunisia and Algeria with considerable difficulty, but ruled easily over Christian countries like Lebanon. This mandate ended in June 8, 1941 and was followed by Lebanon’s Declaration of Independence. This independence received support from the United Kingdom and was peaceful. Afterwards, Lebanon entered international markets in areas such as financing and tourism and there was rapid economic growth; Lebanon’s capital Beirut did well as a resort and became known as the “Paris of the Middle East.”

In Lebanon, Christians and Muslims somehow managed to maintain a balance of power, but this balance collapsed when their neighbor Jordan expelled the Palestinian refugees being sheltered in Jordan, causing Palestinian refugees and PLO extremists to pour into Lebanon in great numbers. Civil war broke out in 1975, and in 1982, the Israeli army, allied with the Christians in Lebanon, invaded Lebanon. Israel, faced with resistance from Hezbollah—a radical party supported by Syria and Iran—and opposition from international public opinion, eventually withdrew from Lebanon in 2000; afterwards, though, chaos continued in Lebanon with a complicated four-way factional conflict between a pro-American faction, a pro-Syria faction, a pro-Hezbollah faction, and an anti-Hezbollah faction, and the nation became exhausted. In 2006 when this movie was made, Israel was angry with the terrorist activities of Hezbollah and attacked Lebanon, which resulted in the 2006 Lebanon War. Eventually, Israel accepted the ceasefire resolution from the United Nations Security Council and withdrew, and the strength of Syria’s control over Lebanon became stronger.

Director Nadine Labaki’s standpoint of, “I am not political,” is persistent throughout this whole movie. However, she became famous suddenly for this movie that was a big hit internationally and she was chosen as one of the top 5 women in Arabian Business magazine’s “Top 100 Most Powerful Arabs” so she is no longer able to keep the standpoint of, “I am not political.” After that, she made Where Do We Go Now? which depicts the conflict between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon. I think I want to write a different entry about this movie.

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