I discovered Bagdad Cafe by accident. The film I'd set out to see was sold out so, having schlepped into London, I reluctantly settled for something I'd never heard of showing on another screen. It was Bagdad Cafe. Subsequently I bought the VHS, lent it to someone - "You MUST see this movie!" - and never got it back. I bought the DVD, lent it to someone else, same result. I bought a second DVD and I am NEVER lending it out. Never ever.
This is a spellbinding film, and like many of the reviewers here I can't quite work out what the spell is. It's a simple story: a German tourist finds herself dumped in the Nevada desert by her obnoxious husband and makes her way to an isolated, rundown motel and service station - the eponymous Bagdad Cafe. She makes friends with the people there. That's it.
The isolation of the motel reflects the isolation of the motley collection of characters living there. Life seems to have passed them by just as the trucks on the highway pass them by. They are in the middle of nowhere, going nowhere, cast up on the edge of the flow like human flotsam. Each is lost in solitude and quiet desperation, stuck, trying to make the best of things.
Jasmin, Marianne Sagebrecht's character, is also stranded by the abrupt and brutal break-up of her marriage. In a black irony she has grabbed not her own suitcase but her husband's, which contains his clothes and, surreally, a teach-yourself-magic kit.
With a vulnerable, valiant and soul-wrenching dignity Jasmin sets about making the most of her bleak situation, a stranger in a very strange land. She rolls up her sleeves and cleans the place. She makes proper coffee, strong. Alone in her room, she starts teaching herself magic tricks from the kit as mile-long trains trundle by in the night.
One by one, the other characters begin to thaw around her. Jasmin is the catalyst that brings them together. Artist and former Hollywood set-painter Rudi Cox (Jack Palance, in lizard-skin cowboy boots as reptilian as his eyes) falls helplessly in lust, then love, with this voluptuous Teuton who has appeared out of the desert like a perspiring valkyrie. The café owner Brenda (CCH Pounder, a world of helpless pain in her face) slowly lets go of the rage that is tearing her apart. She learns to smile again. Brenda's grown-up children, the Bach-worshipping son and the wayward daughter, are won over. The once-deserted café starts to attract a clientèle. Why? "It's magic," as Jasmin says, blue eyes glinting, prestidigitating eggs, coins and ribbons from the ears of laughing customers.
Magic indeed. The film weaves an indefinable spell under skies cascading with colour, against a soundtrack that includes Bob Telson's Oscar-nominated 'Calling You'. Love, friendship and fellowship bloom in the desert. Hope blossoms in the sand. Director Percy Adlon (the screenplay was written by his wife Eleonore) has created a gentle, haunting, humanist jewel.
And no, you can't borrow my copy.
This is a spellbinding film, and like many of the reviewers here I can't quite work out what the spell is. It's a simple story: a German tourist finds herself dumped in the Nevada desert by her obnoxious husband and makes her way to an isolated, rundown motel and service station - the eponymous Bagdad Cafe. She makes friends with the people there. That's it.
The isolation of the motel reflects the isolation of the motley collection of characters living there. Life seems to have passed them by just as the trucks on the highway pass them by. They are in the middle of nowhere, going nowhere, cast up on the edge of the flow like human flotsam. Each is lost in solitude and quiet desperation, stuck, trying to make the best of things.
Jasmin, Marianne Sagebrecht's character, is also stranded by the abrupt and brutal break-up of her marriage. In a black irony she has grabbed not her own suitcase but her husband's, which contains his clothes and, surreally, a teach-yourself-magic kit.
With a vulnerable, valiant and soul-wrenching dignity Jasmin sets about making the most of her bleak situation, a stranger in a very strange land. She rolls up her sleeves and cleans the place. She makes proper coffee, strong. Alone in her room, she starts teaching herself magic tricks from the kit as mile-long trains trundle by in the night.
One by one, the other characters begin to thaw around her. Jasmin is the catalyst that brings them together. Artist and former Hollywood set-painter Rudi Cox (Jack Palance, in lizard-skin cowboy boots as reptilian as his eyes) falls helplessly in lust, then love, with this voluptuous Teuton who has appeared out of the desert like a perspiring valkyrie. The café owner Brenda (CCH Pounder, a world of helpless pain in her face) slowly lets go of the rage that is tearing her apart. She learns to smile again. Brenda's grown-up children, the Bach-worshipping son and the wayward daughter, are won over. The once-deserted café starts to attract a clientèle. Why? "It's magic," as Jasmin says, blue eyes glinting, prestidigitating eggs, coins and ribbons from the ears of laughing customers.
Magic indeed. The film weaves an indefinable spell under skies cascading with colour, against a soundtrack that includes Bob Telson's Oscar-nominated 'Calling You'. Love, friendship and fellowship bloom in the desert. Hope blossoms in the sand. Director Percy Adlon (the screenplay was written by his wife Eleonore) has created a gentle, haunting, humanist jewel.
And no, you can't borrow my copy.