by CHRIS BARRY

With Satin rouge, her first feature- length film, Tunisian director Raja Amari has come up with one damn racy movie - well, uh, by Tunisian standards, that is. Documenting the sexual reawakening of a lonely and melancholic widow/ single-mother-turned-bellydancer, this flick will no doubt offend the delicate sensibilities of the Al-Qaeda crowd, but is unlikely to raise too many eyebrows among Western audiences.

That said, however, Palestine’s grand dame of the cinema, Hiam Abbass, delivers such a wonderfully understated performance in the lead character of Lilia that she manages to elevate what could easily be an insipid melodrama into something the generous among us might even call poignant.

In this, probably best described as a romantic drama, Abbass is concerned that her headstrong teenage daughter might be, God forbid, taking up with an older man behind her back. One night, while investigating the matter, she finds herself at the most happenin’ den of iniquity in all of Tunis - a cabaret where horny men lust after the belly-dancing entertainment, shoving bank notes into the performers’ bras in what essentially amounts to the Tunisian equivalent of a lap dance. Overwhelmed at first by the sheer debauchery of it all, Abbass eventually starts to loosen up a bit as the film moves along, befriending the cabaret’s star performer, and soon has a job shaking her own very well preserved belly dancing booty at the club every night. Her act is a hit, and, newly confident in her sexuality, she finds herself taking the very big step of boinking one of the cabaret’s musicians. But guess what? It turns out her new fuck friend is also the guy who’s been doing her daughter. Oy vey, it don’t get much messier than that.

While the narrative and plot development of Satin rouge sometimes has a kind of by-the-numbers feel to it, overall this film is actually pretty good, and Amari deserves much praise for sparing us what could easily have been a lazy, predictable ending. If for no other reason, Satin rouge is worth checking out solely for the insight it delivers with respect to gender dynamics within Islamic society.

SATIN ROUGE OPENS ON MONDAY, JULY 21, SEE REPERTORY LISTINGS FOR SHOWTIMES

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