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.)

Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory...