Editor Reviews:

Description:
German writer-director Percy Adlon makes a "remarkable" (Boxoffice) American debut with his "charming" (Vogue) Bagdad Cafe starring Cch Pounder (Face/Off) and Jack Palance(City Slickers). Injecting his bold and unique style into a sweet story about the common threads that connect disparate people, Adlon succeeds in creating a cinematic jewel that is both "hilarious and touching" (Los Angeles Times). Drawn to a pair of lights in the barren American desert sky, a mysterious German woman, Jasmin, stumbles upon a dilapidated motel/diner in the middle of nowhere. Her unusual appearance and demeanor are at first suspicious to Brenda, the exasperated owner who has difficulty making ends meet. But when an unlikely magic sparks between the two women, this lonely desert outpost is transformed into a thrivingand popularoasis.

Amazon.com:
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

Rating : - "Nothing's so tragic cause it's all about magic"
Henry Jaglom's 1987 film (also known as OUT OF ROSENHEIM) is just about perfect, and is one of the most affecting films ever made about the forging of a deep friendship. When the fat and overdressed German tourist Jasmin Münchgstettner (the great Marianne Sägebracht) is mourned in the California desert by her traveling companion she seems to be almost entirely without resources to the eyes of Brenda (the equally great CCH Pounder), the suspicious and short-tempered truck stop owner who temporarily takes her in. But Jasmin has resources no one at the truck stop suspects, and soon she's setting to rights the truck stop itself as well as the entire community of misfits gathered around it--including Brenda and her dysfunctional clan. The film is as much as anything a tribute to trust and to hard work; the ending (which features a perfect little musical number) is one of the best of any independent films I can think of, and one of the most beautifully earned. The haunting Jevetta Steele song "Calling You," featured prominently on the soundtrack, exactly captures the film's sense of windswept longing in the most trying of environments.