I first watched this movie when it came out in Morocco, and I just loved it ! I've watched it a couple of times since, in English, and each time it just gets better. Nabil really managed to wrap up a great quality movie that goes beyond its center topic : Belly Dance, he pictured the shock between occidental and oriental cultures in a soft implicit way. Not to mention that he made a belly dancing movie for a general public in a way that the audience gets to know all this fabulous world through Lola, who's American and obviously an outsider like the target audience of the movie. I also loved it because It's just bold, I mean it's basically one of the first Arabic films ever made about belly dancing, giving the fact that it's a pretty controversial matter in oriental/Muslim countries, not to mention Youssef, who's probably the first openly gay character ever portrayed in an Arabic made movie. I couldn't help but notice a lot of similarities between Egypt and Morocco in the movie, some of them were pretty obvious (especially the clothing) so I guess a lot of scenes were shot down here. Anyways, to sum things up, this definitely is a must-watch movie, it's fun, entertaining and well made, but I fell like it has been really underrated for what it really is, I'm afraid not enough people have seen it, and that is truly a shame, so please, go watch it, you will not be disappointed, I promise !
