I really enjoyed this unconventional film. I found the hand-held camera work and video quality of film suited the narrative and tone and the actors did very convincing jobs of the characters they portrayed. The french/American culture clash was done to great comic effect. Paul Rudd was brilliant as well as Romany Malco and Sylvie Testud, whose work I was not familiar with. I've been wanting to see this movie since it came out and I was not disappointed. If you are up for something a little more off the cuff than what usually come out of America, you will be glad to find this movie. It seems like a really good student film with great acting that actually got the resources necessary to see the film through as it was conceived of.
Reviews
2 Reviews
Bagdad Cafe
(1987)
an incongruous visitor shows up at a truck stop motel and everything changes
10 January 2006
This is a wonderful movie if you stick with it a bit. The soundtrack gets stuck in my head for days every time I watch it. (bc it is haunting and beautiful) It is about people edging closer to each other in the strange and jerky way that life really works in. It has a sinuous, hushed, lovely tone to it, a lot of humor and poignancy. The assortment of characters and quirkiness of the location and juxtapositions are really wonderful. Jack Palance is a wonder to behold and I had never known the other actors, but they were all perfect in their parts. One of those movies that seems like it appeared fully formed somehow, but from where? I guess more like life than a movie in this way. One wonders about the process of its being made--how all those characters were assembled in someone's imagination and how they took form. Traces true organic development. A detail-lover's movie.
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