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Jasmin (Marianne Sägebrecht), a German tourist, has just walked off from her husband at the side of the road in the middle of the Mojave Desert; Brenda (CCH Pounder) has just kicked her husband out of the roadside cafe-motel they operate. When Jasmin arrives at the cafe, the two begin developing a prickly but ultimately rewarding friendship. Many other movies have tried to duplicate
Bagdad Cafe's mixture of loose storytelling, off-kilter metaphors, and rich emotions, but most often these imitators leave out the random chaos of life and the awkward pain of change that
Bagdad Cafe captures with such a gentle touch.
Bagdad Cafe earns both its quirkiness and its sentiment by keeping one foot firmly rooted in reality. Director Percy Adlon teamed with star Sägebrecht in two other similarly offbeat movies,
Sugarbaby and
Rosalie Goes Shopping; his more recent features without her haven't been as successful. Still, he continues to be noted for his odd but lively use of color filters and jagged editing.
Bagdad Cafe also features the great Jack Palance (
Shane,
Requiem for a Heavyweight,
City Slickers) playing an easy-going painter; the opportunity to be an ordinary person, rather than his usual wicked fiends, brings out a delightful mischief in Palance. Pounder, who usually gets small supporting parts, deserves another role like this to take advantage of her remarkable range. All in all, an eccentric and wonderful film.
--Bret Fetzer
Review
A cross between an existential European character study and a giddy Hollywood musical, Percy Adlon's desert fantasy introduced the offbeat character actress Marianne Sgebrecht to English-speaking audiences and revitalized the career of Hollywood veteran Jack Palance. Adlon presents his truck stop as a metaphor for the washed-up hopes of those cast aside by America, whether by discrimination and economic hardship (C.C.H. Pounder's caustic Brenda) or by the times (Palance's cowboy/artist relic Rudi). The variety show that brings the motley crew together and affirms their status as an odd extended family would be embarrassing were it not for the film's arid, deadpan humor. Without resorting to the precious, Bagdad Cafe achieves the kind of elation one can get from a great musical. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide