The film has practically no plot, but has a wonderfully quirky set of characters huddled together just off the freeway in the midst of the Mojave Desert.
As Jasmin, Marianne Sägebrecht is less single-minded than she was in "Sugarbaby," her first film with director Percy Adlon. Here she is a prim Bavarian housewife fed up with her husband's inability to manage a tank-sized American car. Dressed in what looks to be a very warm dark brown suit with a matching--very Bavarian--hat, she sets off walking in a very barren landscape.(When Marlene Dietrich set off into the Sahara at the end of "Morocco," she went barefoot; Frau Sägebrecht's shoes sink into the sand.)
Eventually she reaches a ramshackle cafe/motel/gas station owned by Brenda (CCH Pounder) who is seething with frustration and lashing out in a fury at the man she is keeping, at her sluttish daughter, and her son (father of a baby) who spends all his time trying to play Bach as fast and expressionlessly as possible on the piano. Brenda's realm is small, the business barely enough to support her, her children do no work, her paramour is useless. The Native American short-order cook manages to stay out of the way when she is raging -- which is most of the time.
Also in residence are a slinky tattoo artist to whom various truckers rush and a retired Hollywood set painter played with great sweetness and tact by Jack Palance (an actor not otherwise noted for either of those!).
Brenda is outside taking out some of her anger on oil cans strewn about when she sees what must be a hallucination: this large, overdressed woman emerging from the desert pulling a large suitcase. Brenda is very skeptical about this very unusual, vehicle-less customer. It takes Brenda a very long time to realize that Jasmin had nowhere else to go. While both are pretty literally in the middle of nowhere, Jasmin quietly goes about transforming most everyone (except the tattoo artist), especially Brenda.
It is not that she seduces everyone (like Terrence Stamp in Pasolini’s "Teorema") but that her sweetness helps those around her realize their potential -- not least Jack Palance who coaxes her into being his model. She transforms the business, too. I guess that one could say she spreads radiance. Jasmin is far more discreet than Mary Poppins (or Maria in "The Sound of Music"); she is not a jumbo-sized governess! Instead of instructing others, she just is. Just being works magic on the others. She works hard and her inexplicable serenity and perseverance melts everyone, even Brenda. (The scene in which Brenda’s bitchiness shocks herself is extraordinary and accomplished without any trickery --it shows a moment of true feeling, to borrow a Peter Handke title.)
Except for an overlong production number late in the film, the development is deftly done. There is a great deal unexplained (it is very "New German cinema" in providing little or no background information about the characters), but their characteristics and the development of characters and relationships are convincing.
The camera movements and placement here are means, not ends-in-themselves (as they seemed to me to be in "Sugarbaby" and some other "new German cinema of the 1970s and 80s). and the music, especially the song "Calling you" (sung by Jevetta Steele) add to an atomspheric, compelling film about the growth of a wide assortment of characters in an exceedingly unpromising milieu. (The cinematographer was Bernd Heinl.)
Many Germans dote on the American West, especially its most barren extremes. Wim Wenders' "Paris, Texas" has some of the same look, but unfolds far more slowly. It is very difficuly for the characters in these and other German films to connect with each other. The connections that do occur are often unlikely, but touching. (I have written about several of these, including "Dragon Chow"
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000006D33/qid=969560458/sr=1-2/002-2530799-7680051
It s just a greasy spoon and a rusty gas pump, but for Jasmin, the Bagdad Cafe appears as an oasis amid the dunes. For Brenda, the cafe s sloppy, loud...More at Buy.com
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