Lilia (Hiam Abbass) a middle-aged widow in Tunis, fills her days sewing, cleaning house, watching TV, honoring the memory of her deceased husband, and worrying about her teenage daughter, Salma (Hend El Fahem). Occasionally, when a bit of racy music comes over the radio, she’ll let down her hair and dance in front of the mirror. Tunisian director Raja Amari’s film captures middle-class emptiness, repression, and longing in a few precise details, like a pared-down Douglas Sirk; this is a melodrama with dignity and sting that takes familiar situations and follows them down exotic passageways.

Upset by Salma’s late-night absences, Lilia searches for her daughter in a nearby cabaret. Overcome by the heat, smoke, and ardor, she faints, awakening to the demi-monde of the belly dancer. Plying her new trade at night, she buys new shoes by day, scandalizing her neighbors, bewildering her daughter, and empowering herself. By the time she exchanges the glad eye with Chokri (Maher Kamoun, who looks alternately anxious and horny), a musician in the cabaret, Satin Rouge seems poised to turn into a scenario from one of the soaps Lilia watches. But Amari’s narrative is as lean and sensuous as the dancing itself, and Lilia’s fate proves surprisingly elegant and exactly right. In Arabic with English subtitles. (100 minutes)