In this very impressive film from Tunisia, Lilia is a still-attractive woman with a teenage daughter, Salma. Lilia lives a rather sad existence, obsessively cleaning her house, watching television, and eating alone while Salma hangs out with friends. When Lilia goes to check out the place where Salma goes to dancing class she suspects - rightly - that her daughter is involved with a musician. But it's Lilia whose life is changed by her contacts with a world she knows nothing about - a world of nightclubs where belly dancers perform.
The director of Satin Rouge, Raja Amari, is thirty and she follows in the footsteps of her compatriot Moufida Tlatli in exploring the sexual roles women play in Tunisia. The spirit of Douglas Sirk and his 1955 film All That Heaven Allows hovers over this story of a lonely woman who finds an unexpected, unorthodox and exhilarating way to dispel her loneliness, and Hiam Abass is superb as the woman in question.
