I believe in beauty. Beauty has real power and nourishes the imagination the same way the sun nourishes a flower. The sun in Caramel is Nadine Labaki, the film's director and lead actor. Labaki plays Layale, one of five women whose lives intersect in a beauty salon in the Christian section of Beirut. The women want love, sex, and satisfaction from a society that will not give it to them. Much, much more than the other women, Labaki's desire radiates from the screen, onto the faces of those looking up at her. (See Movie Times.)