"'Bagdad Cafe' was a film that changed many, many people's lives... how they saw themselves and how they looked at their life situation. I thought I made a little movie. All the mail that I get is about how it changed lives, and that's wonderful."
Bagdad Cafe (also known as Out of Rosenheim) is director Percy Adlon's first English-language film, a character study of a small desert Quirky Town, Bagdad, and its residents, which is loosely based on Carson McCuller’s novella "The Ballad of the Sad Café".
Their lives are turned upside down when a large Bavarian hausfrau Jasmin Münchgstettner (Marianne Sägebrecht) checks herself into the local truckstop motel/cafe, Bagdad Cafe, after having an argument with her husband. The owner, Brenda (C.C.H. Pounder), is immediately suspicious of the strange foreign woman. In spite of her mistrust, Jasmin begins to win over everyone in town — but then has to return to Bavaria thanks to an expiring visa. Former set painter Rudi Cox (Jack Palance) finds himself intrigued by her.
The film earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Song, the haunting "Calling You". In 1990, a television Spinoff starring Whoopi Goldberg and Jean Stapleton was based on the film
and lasted two seasons.
Bagdad Cafe has examples of:
- Ambiguous Ending: The film ends on Rudi proposing to Jasmin, and not getting an answer.
- Armor-Piercing Response: When Brenda comes upon Jasmin playing with her children, she angrily asks why doesn't she find her own children to play with? Jasmin responds sadly, "I do not have any". This is the exact moment Brenda looks at Jasmin with sympathy and their friendship begins.
- Arc Words: "Magic."
- Audience Participation: An In-Universe example, as the regular truckers join in on the magic show opening song.
- Awful Wedded Life: Whatever is going on with Jasmin and her husband, apparently the trip from Las Vegas was the last straw, climaxed by Jasmin slapping him in the face.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: Jasmin says "yes" to everything Rudi says when he's getting ready to propose, but responds to his last question, "Will you marry me, Jasmin?", with "I'll talk it over with Brenda." Credits Roll.
- Big Beautiful Woman: Rudi certainly thinks Jasmin is one.
- Central Theme: Friendship is magic.
- Character Development: Simply put, everyone in town learns to laugh and enjoy life, especially the two leads.
- Citizenship Marriage: Rudi uses this as an excuse to propose to Jasmin, just in case there are any future issues. They both know it's just an excuse.
- Confound Them with Kindness: Brenda is at first puzzled by and suspicious of Jasmin's need to improve her surroundings, to the point she's outraged to find her office clean and organized.
- Defector from Decadence: Rudi strongly hints that he grew tired of being a Hollywood matte artist and simply came to Bagdad to get away from the movie studios.
- Dénouement: After the climax, the film ends on Rudi awkwardly proposing marriage to Jasmin.
- Dutch Angle: The opening scene where Jasmin argues with her husband is full of them, to give a sense of awkwardness and unease.
- Family of Choice: The entire town becomes one by the end.
- Fat and Skinny: Jasmin is big and round, Brenda is wiry and sharp.
- Feminist Fantasy: To some degree, as it focuses on female bonding.
- Flower Motifs: Desert blooms are part of the Empathic Environment in the film.
- Foil: Despite being diametrically opposed opposites, both Brenda and Jasmin have just abandoned their husbands, are deeply unhappy, and are Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life.
- Foreign Language Title: The original title of the film was Out of Rosenheim. However, even German posters had Bagdad Cafe as the title; few prints actually used the original title. In a further subversion, the German title is still in English, not Raus aus Rosenheim.
- Get Out!: Brenda to her estranged husband Sal and to Jasmin.
- Good Is Boring: The local scrimshaw/prostitute Debby leaves Bagdad, to the disappointment of the rest of the town. When asked why, she replies, "Too much harmony."
- Good-Times Montage: Which doubles as a Time-Passes Montage, highlighted by Jasmin wearing less and less clothes for Rudi's portraits.
- Greek Chorus: Sal, to some extent, since he observes the cafe's goings on from afar through binoculars.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Jasmin and Brenda. As And the Mirror Cracked: Feminist Cinema and Film Theory notes of the ending:With refined humour the film thus privileges until the very end female friendship over heterosexual romance.
- Innocent Bigot: When meeting an angry Brenda, Jasmin suddenly has an Imagine Spot of her being cooked in a giant kettle by Africans with spears.
- Large and in Charge: Jasmin is the very definition of hausfrau, and she generally gets her way, for good or ill.
- Leitmotif: A harmonica version of the closing musical number plays constantly during the film.
- Letting Her Hair Down: Part of Jasmin's Character Development, as she goes from tightly-wound hausfrau to relaxed, laughing woman — and naturally, part of that is no longer putting her hair in a tight bun.
- MacGuffin: Jasmin's thermos somehow makes its way to Bagdad Cafe.
- The Magic Goes Away: When Jasmine is forced to return to Bavaria, a disappointed trucker asks what happened to the magic show. He is literally told, "The magic's gone."
- The Magic Comes Back: Jasmine's return brings life back to the cafe, as well as the magic show.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The film's Magic Realism gives the events of the film the ethereal feel of a Fairy Tale. When Jasmin makes a rose appear in her hand, there's no way she could have possibly used sleight of hand (since she's topless.) The thermos never seems to run out of coffee. (The German posters for the film gave it the Tag Line of "a Modern Fairy Tale".)
- Meaningful Background Event: Sal sneaks back into the Cafe during the magic show finale. Only Rudi notices and lets him in, grinning.
- Mellow Fellow: Rudi, in spades. He's never surprised or shocked — and instead of being confused by Jasmin's unexplained behavior, is intrigued and attracted instead.
- Mundane Object Amazement: Jasmin sees an unusual light pattern in the sky, calling it "her vision". Rudi later tells her it's caused by the local solar panels, and uses the pattern as his signature. Jasmin is no less impressed.
- Neat Freak: Jasmin, as part of her being on the far side of Order with Order Versus Chaos.Rita Kempley: Frau Muenchstettner was born to scrub. She is an artist with a Hoover, the type of woman who understands why they'd name a dishwashing liquid Joy.
- Not Distracted by the Sexy: When Jasmin finally exposes her breast to Rudi while he's doing her portrait, she murmurs "My vision". Rudi turns to her to respond, sees her nakedness and registers it, he looks away and replies, "I like that word. Vision." Note it doesn't mean he's not attracted or appreciative — he's busy painting, and seems to not want to overreact.
- Order Versus Chaos: Jasmin starts on the far side of Order, Brenda on the far side of Chaos, and the film shows Jasmin embracing chaos and Brenda embracing order.
- The Pig-Pen: Brenda, though it may be because she assigned the task of cleaning to Sal, and refuses to let anyone do Sal's job for him, even Jasmin after Sal's gone.
- Quirky Town: Crossed over with Weirdness Magnet as well, as the population of Quirk increases as the film goes on.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: Percy Adlon stated he was inspired by a trip through a desert town much like Bagdad when visiting Las Vegas.
- Real Men Take It Black: Well, real Bavarians, as Jasmin and her husband both find American coffee to be too weak.
- Reality Has No Subtitles: Jasmin and her husband's quarreling in (Bavarian) German have no subtitles.
- Really Gets Around: Brenda's daughter Phyllis fools around with seemingly all the visiting truckers. It gets Lampshaded during the closing magical number, but by then she's found someone.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Sheriff Arnie, who doesn't force Jasmin to leave the cafe because of her seemingly strange behavior. He does force her to leave when her visa expires, however, even though the town has grown to love her.
- Sliding Scale of Plot Versus Characters: The film is firmly on the extreme side of characters. It's largely disjointed and episodic, focusing almost entirely on the quirky resident's personalities, interaction and development.
- Stock Desert Interstate: Bagdad has a population numbering in two digits, and the visiting truckers often outnumber the residents. The movie takes place in a setting like this in the Mojave Desert.
- The Stoner: Rudi Cox gives this vibe, but the strongest stuff he's seen partaking in is coffee.
- Take a Third Option:Rudi: May I come in?
Jasmin: As a painter or as a gentleman?
Rudi: As a man. - Theme Song Reveal: "Calling You".A desert road from Vegas to nowhere
Some place better than where you're been... - Trailers Always Spoil: The original US trailer basically gave away all of the key moments, plot points and ending.
- True Companions: Jasmin and Brenda to the degree that when Rudi proposes marriage, the film ends on her telling him, "I'll talk it over with Brenda."
"Magic!"
