Out Of Rosenheim
Percy Adlon
Following an argument with her husband, Jasmin, a plump Bavarian, finds herself at the Bagdad Café, a seedy motel lost in the middle of the Californian desert. There she meets Brenda, who runs the café and is a hard woman reputed for her stormy character. The motel has a few inhabitants who are all more marginal than the next. Very soon, a solid friendship flourishes between the two women that will change the soul of the Bagdad Café for ever...
With : Marianne Sägebrecht, CCH Pounder, Jack Palance, Christine Kaufmann, Monica Calhoun, Darron Flagg, George Aguilar
Screenplay : Eleonore Adlon, Percy Adlon, Christopher Doherty
Image : Bernd Heinl
Decors : Byrnadette DiSanto
Music : Bob Telson
Editing : Norbert Herzner
Screenplay : Eleonore Adlon, Percy Adlon, Christopher Doherty
Image : Bernd Heinl
Decors : Byrnadette DiSanto
Music : Bob Telson
Editing : Norbert Herzner
Production : Bayerischer Rundfunk, Eleonore Adlon, Percy Adlon
German director Percy Adlon's film is the first in the post Paris, Texas era. In Bagdad café, the rapport de force between Europe and the USA is new. Percy Adlon films his America, i.e. the America of the black population, of minorities, of drop-outs. The presence of Jack Palance is a tribute: he is a key figure in the American film noir, a favoured genre for Europeans in Hollywood in the 1940s and 50s. As Nicolas Saada wrote when the film was released "the whole survival of the little community passes through Europe": Brenda's son plays Bach on the piano and the Bagdad café takes on an air of a Berlin cabaret. Bagdad Café is a poetic and colourful film which works as a link between dream and reality, between the culture of Old Europe and that of the United States.