BAGDAD CAFE
A film review by Craig Good
Copyright 1988 Craig Good
European directors seem to be fascinated with the American desert. After all, there is nothing like it in Europe. German director Percy Adlon came to America and made BAGDAD CAFE. There's been nothing like it on the screen before.
This off-center gem discovers what happens when a corpulent German tourist, played by Marianne Sagebrecht, breaks up with her husband in the desert of Southern California. She wanders into the Bagdad Oil and Gas Cafe, and into the lives of a ill-tempered woman, played beautifully by CCH Pounder, and her bizarre extended family. The only name you'll recognize is Jack Palance as the weird old painter from Hollywood. Other members of the menagerie include a tattoo artist who is very popular with the truck drivers, a son with a bent for classical piano, a daughter who comes and goes with an assortment of lowlife men, and a boomerang-throwing backpacker.
BAGDAD CAFE is a film that grows on you. My relationship with the film paralleled the relationship of the two women. At first I hated it. It started out so badly that I thought they accidentally projected the second reel first. Starting abruptly, it was full of gratuitously tilted cameras, staccato edits and mumbled German. Oh, brother. How did I get talked into watching this movie?
The first ray of hope was the haunting theme music and a memorable image of the woman entranced by eerie lights in the sky. Before I was aware, Brenda, the slovenly cafe owner, had been won over by the genuine and compulsively neat Jasmine. So had I. Through a series of whimsical and strange vignettes BAGDAD CAFE worked its magic. By the end of the movie I was completely hooked.
This is not mainstream, belly-laugh comedy, but I will be smiling or laughing about some of the images for a long time. BAGDAD CAFE is a must-see for devotees of the off-beat. If you think a movie just isn't a comedy if it doesn't have Eddie Murphy in it, stay home. If, on the other hand, you still remember scenes from CHOOSE ME or TROUBLE IN MIND you better search this one out. Island Pictures, bless them, is distributing, but I don't know how wide a release BAGDAD CAFE will get. I hope it comes to a theatre near you.
--Craig
...{ucbvax,sun}!pixar!good
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