Percy Adlon's cult-hit "Bagdad Café" sets the tone the strangest way. Marianne Sägebrecht Jasmin, a Bavarian tourist, stuck in the middle of the Californian desert with an abrasive husband, she mutters names like Disneyland and Las Vegas but what we get from their body language is that a/ they're lost, b/ they're not exactly in their element and c/ she's at the verge of breaking down.And bingo, Jasmin finally snaps, she takes her luggage and walks away from the car. I like it when a movie features exactly the amount of exposition needed, who needs backstory when you see an overweight frau in typical German clothes walking eagerly across the Mojave Desert, and even refusing a ride, you know there's more than traveling.Meanwhile, in a remote and shabby transport café, with an adjacent hotel, an infuriated Brenda, played by CCH Pounder, keeps raging at her husband for having forgotten the percolator while being in town. No need to backstory again, the husband is fed up with his woman's tantrums and leaves her alone. She's the boss of the Bagdad Café now, and it's a matter of time before the coming of a strange visitor.And as different as they were, Jasmin and Brenda were at crucial times of their lives, seemingly dead-end that could be turned into crossroads. To use a hackneyed term, some people are just meant to meet each other. Speaking of that, when I was a kid, "Bagdad Café" has always been an enigma, I hadn't seen the film, but I knew about its most defining image of the two women embracing with that 'Calling You' song in the background. And this image was stuck in my mind for years and years before I finally saw it. Cinema is all about imagery and music and I guess the film offers both without trying too much and it's genuinely good. Now, there's no particular reason for this gem to stand higher than the others, but no reason for the opposite either. Maybe it's because the film has the most unlikely setting, protagonists, and 'story' as far as the story-line goes, that at the end, it's impossible to compare it to any other movie, it's something that could have belonged to the 'New Hollywood' period, one of these 'slice of life' movies, like "The Last Picture Show" without the depressing 'end-of-an- era' theme. Only what could have been a rather bleak and depressing material is handled with good heart and sweetness, Jasmin incarnates a certain openness to new cultures or environments, typical of European mindset, and she manages to change the people around her, meeting more hostility than defensive resistance from the hot-tempered and bossy Brenda. But there's never a moment when you feel that the dynamics are forced, Jasmin marks her territory in the smoothest way, as if our sympathy wasn't taken for granted. But who can resist for that generous woman and that actress who, in any other typical Hollywood (or mainstream commercial European) film, would only be given foil roles.As Jasmin, she wins our hearts as the poor German stranger, estranged from everyone who discovers a shabby, sleazy, untidy place, but still better than the one she left. She knows she must put that in order, but she starts well, by putting her own house (i.e. room) in order. Her atypical behavior catches the attention of the motel- occupants, Brenda's son, a gifted pianist and her daughter who's delighted to see the monotony of the motel being broken for once, truck drivers, a tattoo-artist and a set- painter played by Jack Palance. His presence, his old-hippie fashion the fascinated look he constantly directs toward Jasmin, is one of these details that make "Bagdad Café" such a special movie.Today, there would have been some sexual undertones, the film would have been a comedy, a robbery would happen, or a subplot involving the daughter being a drug- addict or raped, anything for cheap thrills, because no director would believe it possible to maintain such plot absence for a while. And the most dramatic thing is that he would be right, because our ambitions in film-making became so high that we don't realize, they're reversely low. That the film was a box-office hit in Europe and a cult- classic in France shows that the 80's also belong to a time where miracles were possible, where it was still possible to reach the hearts of people with simple stories. And maybe 'simple' stories are the most difficult to make, because there's nothing to hook our mind on, we just have to witness human relationships going on, and trying to find how some scenes speak to us. And maybe it's the film's very particular setting, in the middle of nowhere, that allows it to speak universal statements to everyone. This is a true 'alien' in both meaning of the world, as a foreigner and as a person alienated from her own world, but at the end, she's the one who proves that every occupant of the hotel was alienated by boredom, routine and the stress of their bossy owner, something that was progressively destroying their lives, until the place is resurrected and Jasmin, herself, both singer and magician becomes a sort of money-bringing attraction.And I guess, this is the meaning of that defining image, of that magnificent moment where the two women embrace, you know what they say about images speaking thousand words. This image, one of the most iconic from the 80's, show two women who had more things in common than they thought, two women who met at the most difficult time of their life, show a friendship that finally blossomed over distrust and misunderstanding, and two persons that could finally take a new more optimistic path for their life. It's a mutual "Thank You" behind these friendly smiles. Thank you for putting my house in order, literally for one, symbolically for the other.

No movie of recent memory has gotten off to a less promising start. Opening scene: A car on a desert pull off, two unprepossessing, middle-aged Germans arguing, the fat woman gets out, opens the trunk, and pulls out her suitcase. The man, furious, tries to pull away but backs into some obstacle and the trunk pops open. Still shouting at the woman, he gets out, slams down the truck, which pops open again, slams, reslams, and skids away onto the highway, leaving the Rubensque German woman behind. She trudges off, dragging her suitcase.Okay. So far, not loathsome. A little involving. What the hell was the argument about? How could a man be so angry that he'd drive off and leave a middle-aged fat woman in such a desolate place? But this introduction, whatever its narrative features, is almost obliterated by directorial razzle dazzle. The inserts are instantaneous; the camera tilts at crazy angles; the scene is desemanticized because nobody can get hold of anything while the director insists on his camera being the main character. It's very much like those ill-considered cinematic experiments from the 1980s when making a film was a childhood adventure, like throwing stones at a squirrel.And what next? Cut to a dilapidated gas/station lunch counter on the same disconsolate road; a one-room aluminum trailer, a broken-down porch, and C C H Pounder, the worst emblem of angry black womanhood imaginable. She's dressed in shabby old clothes. There are a couple of her kids hanging around. Most are lifeless. One is practicing the piano but makes too many mistakes and repeats the same irritating passage over and over. Poor Bach. Poor ill-tempered clavier. Jack Palace with his flat face, toothy grin, and hissing voice is no help. He's dressed like a geriatric hippy and claims to be a painter from Hollywood. He hangs in the background, an indistinct vision. Meanwhile Pounder is bustling here and there, almost hysterical, constantly screeching and slamming doors, though no one pays attention. A viewer is exhausted just watching and listening to her.Enter the Bavarian Brunhilde, sweaty from her hike but carefully dressed in a suit and a ridiculous Bavarian hat with feathers. She trudges to the counter and says, "Coffee" -- or rather "Kaffee." No coffee. The new plastic coffee maker doesn't work; it just makes grinding noise and jiggles about. Juice? No juice? But with the presence of Marianne Sägebrecht, the movie changes. She takes a room in the shabby motel behind the café. The place is a dump -- paint peeling, holes in the wall, the skeleton of the wooden frame showing through the ceiling. But Marianne Sägebrecht is a German and she is industrious. She sets about, cleaning the place up. Done with her room, she attacks Pounder's office, throws out all the garbage, neatens the shelves, and even blows years worth of accumulated sand from the roof. When Pounder sees this, she explodes with rage.That's about the point at which the movie acquires genuine character and I don't think I'll take the plot farther. You may or may not be able to guess what happens by the end. (Probably you can.) But by this time, despite that regrettable opening scene, I doubt that you'll switch channels. All kinds of spontaneous stuff crops up. Christine Kaufmann shows up as a truck stop hooker and tattoo artist. Palance explains to the matronly Sägebrecht that, well, yes, he was a painter in Hollywood. "I painted sets." Then he paints absolutely awful portraits of the German lady, meanwhile spouting exaltations in Polish.The tuneful theme song, "Calling You," is available on YouTube.It's an impressive film -- if you get through the first five minutes or so.

In a world where (some) men just escape and hide, and women go ahead and start everything anew, any place becomes a good place to give new lymph to one's life: change lies in everyone's will to make it happen, and history teaches that women are far better than men in this. The director (a man!) of "Out of Rosenheim" (better known as "Bagdad Cafè") proves this simple truth very clearly and honestly. In my still in progress search for on the road movies I bumped into this curious piece of cinema, not a road picture properly, since no physical journey happens, but certainly more than an inner journey develops. It involves the lives of some odd characters, especially Jasmin and Brenda whose lives, so distant but so similar, come to meet at the Bagdad Café, located on a "desert road from Vegas to nowhere" (quotation from the wonderful leading song "Calling you"). At the beginning it is a shabby, dirty, anonymous place, where people only pass by, run by a hysterical and melancholic Brenda, whose encounter with the impeccable "deutsche" Jasmin will turn the cafè into an amusing and happy place and will renew both lives radically. They will become friends, besides suspicion and fear, by teaching mutually how to enjoy life again. And it will turn out very difficult, almost impossible, to leave this magic place. The cast is outstanding, the two female protagonists are perfect in their parts, but also Jack Palance, with his mixture of past glory and present melancholy, leaves the mark.The very good photography (some settings captured at sunset are really effective), together with the deeply involving and enigmatic music contribute to a significant emotional impact on the viewer, and also some very funny moments are to be enjoyed. A truly worth seeing picture.

'Out of Rosenheim' (aka 'Bagdad Cafe') is a simply executed film. There are no lavish sets, no heavy special effects and the story is just as simple. But the experience of watching this movie is magical. The film takes place in an isolated motel in desert-like Bagdad (not Iraq's capital city) in California. A young mother (and grandmother) struggles to run her motel and keep her family together. Enter an enigmatic German lady into the motel and there is magic in everyone's life.In a way 'Out of Rosenheim' can be described as a mood piece. The visuals are beautiful, very detailed and symbolic. The colourful characters are very likable. The enigmatic song 'Calling to You' appears every now and then as though Jasmine receives her calling. The background score is just as effective. Adlon makes good use of light and climate. How the heat seemingly irritates the characters in the beginning but gradually as the characters get accustomed or as 'life gets better' the heat is no bother.Yet, 'Out of Rosenheim' is not just a mood piece. There is a solid story but it's not easy to describe what it's about. At the centre of it lies the friendship between Jasmine and Brenda. However there is just so much more going on. Both ladies are coping with their daily lives. Jasmine finally takes some measure and, consequently comes to Bagdad where she meets all these strange characters and as a friendliness develops, she brings colour not only into their lives but also her own. Adlon beautifully unfolds the mystery of her character by revealing that she's a magician at heart. There are so many beautiful and endearing scenes but it all feels genuine and authentic rather than syrupy. In a way, the film reminded me of the classic 'Mary Poppins' and the unique and subtle presentation of 'Out Of Rosenheim' makes it more real (in contrast to the fairy tale of 'Mary Poppins').Just like everything else, the acting is great. Marianne Sägebrecht and CCH Pounder clearly own the movie. Sägebrecht unfolds her character's layers with skill and ease. She brings a gentleness and calmness to Jasmine that excellently contrasts Pounder's Brenda. Likewise, Pounder too demonstrates her talent as the chaotic and verbally aggressive mother who's trying to keep it together. The rest of the cast perform well.Overall, 'Out of Rosenheim' is a cinematic treat. I would love to visit this film over and over again to see if I missed anything because of the detail but also the heartfelt story and characters warrant an invitation to watch again.