My Favourite Cake is a moving film about later-in-life love, set in the brutal repression of Iran - ABC News
My Favourite Cake is a moving film about later-in-life love, set in the brutal repression of Iran
My Favourite Cake's directors have had their passports confiscated and are facing a court case for crossing several Iranian government 'red lines' in their new movie starring Lili Farhadpour and Esmaeel Mehrabi. (Vendetta Films: Hamid Janipour)
It's impossible to write about bittersweet Iranian rom-com My Favourite Cake without referencing the repression its two co-directors, Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, faced in the making of it.
The Iranian regime banned them from travelling to the premiere of My Favourite Cake at the Berlinale, after they were charged with making propaganda against the regime. The film almost didn't get made after their house was raided and their computers and hard drives were confiscated. Thankfully, a copy of it had found safe harbour in Paris and, even as the travel ban persists for its co-directors, this quietly radical film is now gracing cinema screens around the world.
It's also impossible to write meaningfully about My Favourite Cake without giving away a key plot development, but it's even more unsatisfactory watching it knowing what's about to transpire. An anomaly among films these days that are often preceded by trailers riddled with spoilers, My Favourite Cake leaves viewers guessing until the very end.
"The main issue was always the hijab." Behtash Sanaeeha told The Guardian the Iranian government ordered the withdrawal of scenes with Lili Farhadpour's hair uncovered. Saneeaha and fellow director Maryam Moghaddam refused and were banned from leaving the country. (Vendetta Films: Hamid Janipour)
Mahin (played by a wonderful Lili Farhadpour) is a 70-year-old widowed mother of children who have migrated overseas. She lives by herself in a well-appointed home in Tehran with a beautiful garden, a passion project that she's lovingly cultivated over the past few decades.
Mahin leads a simple, solitary life of maintaining her hearth and home, watching rom-coms late into the night as she battles insomnia, and conversing with friends she barely sees in person anymore. It might be enough if Mahin wasn't struggling with the indignities of old age — most notably, acute loneliness.
Cinematographer Mohammad Haddadi favours long, sweeping shots that situate Mahin in the larger context of a city she no longer recognises, and which isn't kind to an ailing body.
We see her struggle to transport her groceries home, visit an old hotel she used to frequent to enjoy an old drink that's no longer on the menu, and contend with newfangled technology that she feels alienated by, from QR codes to ride-sharing apps.
Mahin (played by Lili Farhadpour) lives a mostly solitary life, occasionally meeting up with friends. (Vendetta Films: Hamid Janipour)
Her increasingly strong desire to meet someone, masked by her need to use some old food vouchers, sees her venture to a pensioners' restaurant where she notices an older single man, Faramarz (played with a pleasant diffidence by the fantastic Esmaeel Mehrabi). Engaging in some light stalking, Mahin discovers Faramarz is a taxi driver and waits until he finishes his shift, after which she asks him to drive her home. Thus begins an extraordinary night that will define both of their lives.
The Screen Show: Iranian film My Favourite Cake explores issues of freedom, second chances, and women's rights in a country with strict restrictions.
If the impressionistic montages of Mahin's solitude evoke a certain sadness, Faramarz's life story is even more devastating. A disillusioned war veteran who sustained lifelong injuries from his time as a lieutenant, Faramarz leads a joyless existence battling financial precarity and without the comfort or companionship of children and friends, something Mahin at least has from afar.
Their night together unfolds tentatively and gently at first, before gathering momentum as they wine, dine, dance and begin to chart their shared future together.
Moghaddam and Sanaeeha imbue this incredibly affecting sequence of events with levity and humour. If it seems unbelievable that two strangers would immediately hit it off to the point they'd consider sharing their lives with one another, despite the grave risks, the chemistry and rapport between Farhadpour and Mehrabi puts paid to any doubts.
The chemistry and rapport between Lili Farhadpour and Esmaeel Mehrabi bring an undeniable authenticity to the movie. (Vendetta Films: Hamid Janipour)
There's a clear class and gender divide separating how Mahin and Faramarz have inhabited their lives up to this point, but with both uncannily the same age, there's their collective shared histories and cultural emblems to draw upon as they exchange anecdotes, musings and personal digests.
Like the dangers that pervaded the making of this film, an undercurrent of tension ripples beneath, as Mahin and Faramarz live in fear of evoking the ire of Iran's repressive regime — symbolised here by Tehran's morality police.
The film is skilfully layered with recollections of what life in Iran was like pre-revolution, when women weren't mandated to wear hijabs and alcohol could be consumed freely. The personal costs of this are manifold — Mahin and Faramarz's already constricted lives are constrained further by unspoken, oppressive rules that abound about gender — and this fear is an all-encompassing pall that blankets their every action.
But if My Favourite Cake excels at depicting the ignominies of ageing, it also succeeds at illustrating its boons. Mahin stands up to the morality police to defend a young Iranian woman threatened with arrest for not fully covering her hair with her hijab.
Director Maryam Moghadam told The Hollywood Reporter: "We are showing things that never get shown in Iranian cinema ... like showing a woman dancing and drinking." (Vendetta Films: Hamid Janipour)
In a way, this same fearlessness motivates her to pursue Faramarz who, armed with a similar openness, responds to her overtures in kind. An uproarious scene of Mahin entertaining her friends early in the film underlines the kinship and candour of lifelong friendships.
When My Favourite Cake veers in a direction quite unexpected, Moghaddam and Sanaeeha manage the tonal shift superbly. But that's about all I can say on that note.
My Favourite Cake posits the question: what would happen if, among the constellation of lonely disparate people contained in one metropolis, two of them dared to dream of something better for themselves, a life that invited the other in and savoured the joys of companionship?
My Favourite Cake - official trailer
My Favourite Cake is in cinemas now.
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