Sweet, and ultimately surprisingly complex. A middle aged Tunisian widow re-discovers herself and her sexuality through belly dancing at a nightclub.
For a while it plays a bit like a Hollywood fantasy (her transition from mousy loner to extroverted pro belly dancer is absurdly quick and easy), but with time the film grows into areas of greater subtlety; not just a woman breaking free in a repressive culture, but spotlighting the wonderful sexiness of a self-accepting woman in her 40s (something few western films do), and the dark along with the light that comes with sexual liberation (the club is right on the edge of feeling like a creepy strip club, where a number of the dancers works as prostitutes). Throw in the fact that our heroin sleeps (unknowingly) with her daughter's boyfriend and yet is neither condemned or punished for it, plus the film's deliberately ambiguous ending involving said boyfriend and daughter, and the film well transcends its 'Flashdance goes Islam' first half to become something wonderful and emotionally complex.
For a while it plays a bit like a Hollywood fantasy (her transition from mousy loner to extroverted pro belly dancer is absurdly quick and easy), but with time the film grows into areas of greater subtlety; not just a woman breaking free in a repressive culture, but spotlighting the wonderful sexiness of a self-accepting woman in her 40s (something few western films do), and the dark along with the light that comes with sexual liberation (the club is right on the edge of feeling like a creepy strip club, where a number of the dancers works as prostitutes). Throw in the fact that our heroin sleeps (unknowingly) with her daughter's boyfriend and yet is neither condemned or punished for it, plus the film's deliberately ambiguous ending involving said boyfriend and daughter, and the film well transcends its 'Flashdance goes Islam' first half to become something wonderful and emotionally complex.