Day 361 of the challenge! Bagdad Café is pretty out there. One of the oddest movies I’ve seen this year for sure.
So right from the get-go, you can feel there’s something off or different about Bagdad Café. On paper, it’s a very simple story about human connections and the “magical” influence the right kind of people can have on each other (and the ensuing magic they then create together). Basic enough premise with a feel good follow through, but Bagdad Café has an entrancing way of playing it out.
The editing is jarring and haphazard, the cinematography and coloring is weird and surreal, but it all somehow comes together at the end to create some whimsical. All these technical quirks give the story a bit of a fairy tale quality, a quality that makes the film hard to look away from. Light on story but heavy on emotion, once you start Bagdad Café you have to finish it, no matter how slow paced it might seem.