Bagdad Café

This is a love story. And in this film magical love comes to the Bagdad Cafe in the form of Jasmin, who brings meaning and purpose to the lives of the small group of people who surround her: the painter who begins to paint again and falls in love; Brenda, the harried, frustrated owner of the cafe who finds friendship, comfort and support; Brenda's children, who also benefit from Jasmin's caring and compassion. The use of the boomerang was interesting: a metaphor for what you give, you get back, and the joy of giving and receiving. The magic of Love will appear anywhere -even in the middle of the desert- as long as you have an open heart and mind.

A wonderful, funny, odd, and unique film.

Strong acting all around (Jack Palance is amazing). Inventive use of distorted colors and changing camera speeds. A few moments get a bit precious, but generally one of the best uses I've seen of a slightly surreal style to tell a very touching, human story - an overweight, depressed Bavarian housewife is left stranded in the southwest desert by her husband, and slowly finds herself, and a home among the odd characters who live and work at the Bagdad Cafe.

This is a case where brave film-making enhances rather than distracts from emotional involvement. The basic theme (we're all weird, and we all need somewhere to fit in) is nothing new, but the approach here makes it delightful and fresh.

The original 15 minute longer 'director's cut' available on European DVDs does add some nice details, moments and filling out of characters. The film works fine in its shorter US version, and the Italian DVD of the director's cut I got was frustrating in that it had a a weaker visual transfer than the US DVD, and there were Italian subtitles you couldn't turn off, but I was glad to see it, and overall it's an even stronger film with the original material added back in.

A overweight German tourist is dumped in the middle of nowhere by her angry husband and puts in motion a set of unlikely comic and touching events.

Here in the Internet age we can do a lot of good work digging up and re-appraising films that deserve to be seen. While this is film might not to be everyone's taste it is a wonderful light drama about people of no particular importance doing very little beyond learning about each other.

Yet it works so well and haunts you for days after seeing it.

For reasons I also can't explain I find the American hinterlands strangely poetic and underused. Films such as Paris, Texas and The Last Picture Show also used these regions effectively.

More than any other film I have seen it cannot really be explained in words. It is about atmosphere and delivery and superb acting for a cast of - mostly - unknowns. It doesn't really have a plot as such and merely lingers in small-town America and observes small town mores and manners with cold detachment.

A little gem.

Here's a lovely oddity from little known German director Percy Adlon - his first in English. Set in the Arizona scrub is a scruffy diner, where a motley crew of staff and regulars make their home.

A plump German housewife (a joyous Marianne Sagebrecht) is dumped at the roadside by her husband after they row. She makes it to the diner, cases in tow, where the argument has been all about the broken down coffee machine. "You want a room? HERE!!?" enquires boss Brenda (CCH Pounder). The camera shows odd angles and takes on things, rather like Oliver Stone's might do.

Jack Palance, radiating comic charm is the resident just beyond-middle age hippie and he takes a shine to the Frau Jasmin. His performance is as memorable as his Oscar winning one in City Slickers. Anyways, the bustling restless Jasmin has her ways of thinking and those ways don't always meet that of Brenda. Her first task is to do the much needed vacuuming in a pea-green walled room that she's paid $25 to stay in. It's the sight of Jasmin's unpacked lederhosen that causes Brenda to call out the local sheriff.

In a charming, heart-warming tale, full of human colour, is a film that can be enjoyed time and again (I'm on my third view) and one that is offbeat enough to be interesting but always stays the side of going too far. An unknown and enjoyable gem.

I sat down and watched this in a rather distressed state having had a trying day. After a few minutes into the film my mood changed as I became immersed into this strange tale of a harassed owner of a cafe in the middle of nowhere and a tourist from Germany. The owner of the cafe brilliantly played by CCH Pounder is just as bemused as we are why this German tourist delightfully played by Marianne Sagebrecht wants to stay at her cafe. This is a wonderfully unpredictable film never going where most films would go. It's utterly charming and I only got distressed again when I realised it was about to end! (9/10)