Weird Movies for Your Winter Watchlist (Part 1)

Hunting for treadmill-worthy movies through the winter months, one tends to get more open-minded once the mainstream options are exhausted. (And maybe I'm exaggerating only a little about the paucity of eligible mainstream choices.) Settling on a film depends a great deal on one's mood and a bit on the photo accompanying the title. The description, however, can make or break the decision to hit "Play." While vacationing in the Caribbean [could be beautiful scenery, but perhaps feature too many scantily clad ladies], Clara falls for Jeremy. [Hmm.] He's tall, dark and handsome--and married! [Fun and hilarious! I'll pass.]

But plenty of movies are difficult to gauge from the picture or description. I have to give some of these a chance, as this is how I've discovered wonderful works of art. Mysterious movies are like wild cards--or important congressional bills, where you play them to see what's in them. Will I watch all the way through, shaking my head? Will I fall in love with the acting, the dialogue, the story, and the visuals, and recommend to friends? Or will I scramble to stop the film five minutes in and go wash my hands? I've viewed some real wild cards lately.

Baghdad Cafe turned out to be the strangest movie I've ever seen. I chose it because the name made me think of the foreign films I like to watch, and the description drew me in. The setting is a dreary desert cafe off Route 66, the plot seems character-driven, and the story jerks forward with sequences of scenes that remind me a great deal of a high school play. I could imagine the script saying something like, Cafe Interior. Expressionless employee is slowly cleaning the counter. Regular customer enters stage left, props his feet up on the table, and smiles.

Regular Customer: Coffee please.

And so on. The story opens with a round, stiff German fraulein who, escaping her own sad life circumstances, stumbles upon the cafe and its bored, angry characters. SPOILER:

Over time, she comes to seem sweet and even attractive, and of course, she makes a difference and brings crackling vitality to a dead establishment.

The movie is unconventional without trying too hard (perhaps its German producer was a little . . . well, weird), and even Roger Ebert says: "The charm of 'Bagdad Cafe' is that every character and every moment is unanticipated, obscurely motivated, of uncertain meaning and vibrating with life." However, one scene sequence is simply a dusty old naughty trope involving an artist asking to paint the lady he admires. The long ending scene (SPOILER) is bizarre--all the employees sing and dance together, Broadway-like, for an admiring crowd. I grew attached to the main character, and some scenes and sound effects, like a desert sunset with the swish of a boomerang, are beautiful.

The theme song is plaintive—well-performed but like nails on a chalkboard, especially since it is repeated several times. Surprisingly, "Calling You" became popular in the late 80s and early 90s. The concept, too, was deemed worthy and was spun into a short-lived TV series with a cast of well-known characters, including Whoopi Goldberg.

I recommend the movie if you were in the same spot I was--you've run out of options and have the patience to view something unusual.