Global Vision Film Series kicks off

The Department of Anthropology Global Visions Film Series has started up again, showing movies in the Memorial Union Lecture Bowl on Tuesdays at 7 p.m.

Their latest offering was Caramel, a Lebonese film released in 2007. On attending, there was a bit of initial apprehension on my part. After all, the entire movie is set in a beauty salon and, as if they are daring you to form evil, preconceived notions about the film, the whole thing is in subtitles.

The movie, Caramel, widely outperformed my expectations, and proved to me that not all beauty shop movies turn out to be tomato -worthy.

I'm not alone on praising the film. Caramel has won numerous amount of awards, including Directors' Fortnight selection 2007 and the TCM Audience Award 2007. In addition to the awards, Caramel has been distributed in over forty countries, easily making it one of the most internationally acclaimed and exposed Lebanese film to date.

The movie takes place in Beirut, Lebanon, and centers around five women, three of whom work in the beauty salon: Layale, who is in a dead-end relationship with a married man; Rima, who happens to be attracted to other women; and Nisrine, who no longer is a virgin but is set to be married to a conservative family who does not accept pre-marital sex.

There is also Jamale a wannabe actress dealing with age in all the wrong ways and a regular customer at the salon. Lastly, Rose, has just found her first love, but is conflicted between taking care of her mentally unstable sister and pursuing that love.

The movie takes place during a time when Lebanon is a bit unbalanced, but instead of focusing on the political problems, the movie focuses on the everyday lives of these five women. It is definitely an interesting approach, and proved to be effective.

It is likely that most people probably haven't heard of this film, or many of the other films Global Visions puts on for that matter. This is no reason to not visit the events and broaden your own horizons. Another good reason: it's free.

After a while I did realize that subtitles aren't always the most fun to read, but if you have never heard the Lebanese language spoken, it's definitely a treat. It's sounds like a mixture of Spanish and French.

Madisson Whitman, a student at here at UND said, "Grand Forks just simply doesn't get international movies, or more independent films, so she created this series to access cultural films that we wouldn't get otherwise." The she in that sentence was referring to Marcia Mikulak, Associate Professor of Anthropology at UND, who started the film series. "It's hard to find stuff to do in grand forks if your underage, so its another event, that you can go to, another arts related thing, and it allows students access forms of culture they otherwise wouldn't be able to access," said Whitman about the film series.

Caramel is an eye-opening movie, mainly because people, mostly girls, can relate to it so well. Every woman around the world goes through the same problems. There may be cultural, and environmental differences. But no matter where you are geographically, no matter who you are, people are all the same. And that's what is so eye opening. "The films that role though you might hear about at the academy awards, maybe a foreign language film, and global vision really gives students an opportunity to see things like that," said Whitman.

Students can find a schedule of movies on the Anthropology website, under the Global Visions Film Series. Or there are posters up inside the Union with information.