Finally, after a long wait, I managed to watch My Favorite Cake.
I had seen a few video clips of the film on social media portraying our everyday life in Iran on screen, a life that had been forbidden to show for a very, very long time. Those powerful clips made me deeply curious to see the film.
Intentionally, I avoided reading any critics and comments about My Favorite Cake, because I didn’t want them to influence my own judgment or make me prejudge the film.
But now after watching the film I can claim that this film is a miracle for Iranian Cinema. Watching our ordinary everyday life after forty-five years on screen can’t be called anything but a miracle.
Directors and authors of this wonderful film Maryam Moghadam and Behtash Sanaeeha, a smart and brave couple have set foot in the footsteps of the great Iranian new generation filmmakers.
Casting Esmaeel Mehrabi (as Faramarz), a pioneer of acting in cinema and theater, along with Lili Farhadpour, (as Mahin) who does not have much of experience in acting, was a big risk, but their physics and very natural acting styles has made their character and the whole story believable.
My Favorite Cake takes us into the life of an elderly woman, a lonely widow in a country where, society’s beliefs, a woman should stay alone after her husband’s death and live her miserable lonely life…. a woman who had once managed the life of a family and now her children have left her to live abroad and are busy with their own matters and even don’t find a time to have a phone conversation with her. And this woman, drowning in her loneliness is spending long boring hours and counting days down until one day she will be done with her life.
In the sequence where Mahin is in a gathering with her middle-aged lady friends we are faced with bold and original humor, the same as in the restaurant scene, where Mahin is having dinner next to the table of a group of elderly men.
There is also a scene in the park where Mahin prevents the arrest of a young girl. The difference between Mahin and the young girl’s generation is clearly seen in their relationship with the opposite sex.
On the advice of her friend in their gathering, Mahin decides to go after a relationship with a man, and from here she steps into a forbidden world, a forbidden world for the Iranian women that reminds me of a poem by late Ahmad Shamlou, great Iranian poet: “I am your common pain, scream my name”
Mahin’s secret pain is the pain of most of the elderly women in my country, and Faramarz is also a man who has continued his life aimlessly with a wrong and unsuccessful marriage.
Acquainting these two with each other is just like attracting two poles of a magnet
Mahin and Faramarz, on a unique night that is worth living for a hundred years without love, dance together and experience all that they have not had in these lonely years and what happy moments they create together.
I won’t write the rest of the story until the end of the story is revealed to those who don’t know
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All in all, we are facing a movie that shows ordinary life, without the use of cliché slogans, and by implementing very expressive language and simple dialogues, far from any usual author’s show off. The performances of all the actors are smooth and flawless, even for those in supporting parts. The world of the film is very simple and serves the concept of the story.
I deeply enjoyed this movie and even after a week from watching it, my mind is still occupied with the pure emotional, social and cinematic moments of it.