My Favourite Cake serves as a poignant reminder of the struggles faced by the Iranian people against political oppression, blending tender romance with stark political commentary, urging audiences to engage with the ongoing challenges in Iran’s society.
Berlinale prides itself on its politically charged film selection, and this year proves no different. The world premiere of My Favourite Cake (Keyke mahboobe man) at this year’s 74th Berlinale began on a poignant note. As the stars took their places, the directors’ chairs were left empty, with the Iranian collaborators Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha having been banned by Iranian authorities from travelling outside the country. Those same authorities have instigated court proceedings against My Favourite Cake for its depiction of the morality police, women without hijabs, and its representation of a woman dancing and drinking alcohol with a man who is not her husband.
At the film’s press conference, actors Lily Farhadpour and Esmail Mehrabi delivered a powerful message on behalf of their directors; “Today, a film which we have spent three years of our lives making will be shown here, unfortunately, without our presence. We feel like parents who are forbidden from even looking at their newborn child… We are sad and we are tired but we are not alone.” Like many Iranian movies, My Favourite Cake had to be filmed in secret, continuing the subversive cinematic tradition of this country, which has produced such an incredible wealth of remarkable, groundbreaking, radical films. Also, like many internationally popular Iranian movies of the past decade, the focus in My Favourite Cake is upon an alternative-thinking female character who is facing up to the challenges of life under the Iranian regime (think Persepolis, Girl Who Walked Home Alone At Night and Holy Spider – some personal favourites).
The power of My Favourite Cake emerges almost entirely from its reflection upon the current status of women under the Iranian regime, which it displays beautifully, thoughtfully and in a poignant, understated manner. We follow Mahin (Lily Farhadpour), a 70-year-old woman living in Tehran, who is facing the challenges of ageing as a widowed Iranian woman. Universal questions of visibility as an older woman, memory and sexuality as an older person are explored through the particular, personal situation of Mahin and her friends. Alongside the politically charged context of its Iranian setting, the film’s meditation on the bodies, thoughts and feelings of an ageing woman feels refreshing and radical (unfortunate and depressing as it is that even today, in 2024, focussing on the life of an older woman still feels either radical or refreshing…).
Set up as a later-life rom-com, we follow Mahin’s trips around the city she has known her whole life and calls home, but which is ceaselessly changing around her. She waters her plants – under the watchful eye of her regime supporting neighbours, calls her daughter – who like so many young Iranians has fled the country, and falls in love – secretly dancing, drinking and caressing a man within the privacy of her own home. Moghaddam and Sanaeeha couple these quotidian experiences, so familiar to all of us, with powerful reminders of how daily life under an authoritarian regime restricts every aspect of your personal life.
In a chance encounter at a ‘pensioner’s restaurant’, Mahin encounters Faramarz (Esmail Mehrabi), with whom she attempts to rekindle her youthful romantic spirit, with a gentleness and a warmth which really tugs at your heartstrings. The pair get drunk, eat dinner in Mahin’s ridiculously beautiful garden, and fast forward through the stages of early courtship to conversations as if they were a long married couple, all in the course of one evening. Through this, the film imparts the desperation, desire and nothing-to-loose nature of the unlikely couple, and the sense that when you are either nearing death or living under an authoritarian regime, every moment of joy, spontaneity and tenderness should be cherished and lived to its fullest. Although I came away feeling that the film lacked a certain edge, the political undercurrent – as well as the truly remarkable performances of the two lead actors – made up for the slightly overdone final plot point and sometimes bland (if always sweet) overtones.
In one of the most potent scenes in the film, we witness Mahin standing up against the morality police when she sees a young girl being taken into their van. This scene is a masterful weaving together of levity and tension which cuts through the whimsical sweetness of the film thus far, bringing a visceral, devastating reminder of the case of Mahsa Jhina Amini’s death in morality police custody and the ensuing ‘Girls of Revolution Street’ protests to mind. With these protests having fallen out of the news headlines in the past year, (the ever increasing pace of our news cycle seems entirely unable to maintain the longevity required for any major story these days), it is films like My Favourite Cake which remind us to look, think, and talk again about the situation in countries like Iran. Cinema is a key tool in raising awareness and provoking empathy around crucial, controversial, political conversations, which the selection at Berlinale so potently platforms. Go and watch My Favourite Cake, talk about it with people you know, and remember and research again what is happening today to the people of Iran.
