‘The President’s Cake’ offers a slice of life under Saddam
Iraqi film follows young girl through a chaotic Baghdad
When a red balloon floats in the background of a scene in “The President’s Cake,” international cinephiles will know exactly what first-time Iraqi filmmaker Hasan Hadi is referencing. The film is clearly in the tradition of “The 400 Blows,” “The White Balloon” “and, yes, “The Red Balloon,” classic international movies about children on their own in large cities.
In this case, the city is Baghdad in 1990. Hadi grew up there during this time, and if you told me that this was a lost film shot during that period and hidden away until now, I would half-believe you. “The President’s Cake” immerses you in the tactile details of this time and place – the street vendors trying to eke out a living, the bored soldiers manning checkpoints, the American jets screaming overhead. And the depictions of Saddam Hussein everywhere, reminding his cowed populace that there’s nowhere they can go and nothing they can do that’s beyond the reach of his oppressive regime.
Our guide to this place is Lamia (first-time actor Baneen Ahmed Nayyef) is a 9-year-old girl who lives in the marshlands outside Baghdad with her feisty grandmother (Waheed Thabet Khreibat). Her education is at least as much about worshipping Saddam as it is about reading, writing and arithmetic, and each year, one of the students is tasked with making a cake for the class in honor of the dictator’s birthday.
This year, Lamia is selected, and it’s not an honor. Eggs, milk and sugar are scarce in an Iraq under the weight of international sanctions, and Lamia is sure she will be punished if she doesn’t complete her task.
Shot in Baghdad, the film has the textures of a documentary, and while Lamia’s remarkable performance keeps us engaged in her quest, it’s really Baghdad itself that feels like the main character
“The President’s Cake” follows Lamia and her grandmother (along Lamia’s pet rooster, Hindi) as they spend the day in the big city, hunting down the ingredients needed for the cake. It’s a harrowing journey, especially after Lamia is separated from her mother, and has to navigate a chaotic, oppressed city where kindness or cruelty may lurk behind the next corner. A jovial mailman might give them a ride into town or help them get out of a jam with the local police, and then in the next scene, a creepy vendor tries to lure Lamia into an adult theater.
As Lamia tries to secure all her needed ingredients, the movie unfurls as a series of neorealist vignettes that depict what life in Baghdad was like. Lamia moves through crowded hospitals where the doctors require bribes, bustling street markets full of vendors selling their wares, and, in one striking scene, an opulent candy store that shows not everyone is suffering under Saddam.
In one striking scene that reminded me of Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma,” Lamia gets caught on the street between two opposing groups of demonstrators, a scraggly group of protesters and a frightening parade of armed men and children chanting in support of Saddam.
Shot in Baghdad, the film has the textures of a documentary, and while Lamia’s remarkable performance keeps us engaged in her quest, it’s really Baghdad itself that feels like the main character. Hadi lived through this period in Iraq, and “The President’s Cake” feels like an authentic window into a country’s traumatic past.
“The President’s Cake” opens Friday in theaters. In Madison, it will play at AMC Fitchburg 18.