‘MY FAVOURITE CAKE’: A Delicious Iranian Treat Until It Gets Burned
Directed by Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, ‘My Favourite Cake’ centers on a Tehran-set love story between a widow and a divorced taxi driver in their seventies.
The theatre was packed, and expectations were high for what was described as a flavoured later-life rom-com with a twist. “It’s going to be so good, I can feel it”, I heard a middle-aged lady say to her companion in the row in front of us. Plus, the comedy-drama had premiered at the Berlinale a day after Valentine’s Day, so the mood was set.
However, it is far from your typical rom-com: in contemporary Iran, governed by theocratic principles, there is little room for freedom and carefree love. This is why the story of our two protagonists, Mahin (Lily Farhadpour), and Faramarz (Esmaeil Mehrabi), who find themselves in potential jeopardy due to their romance, is particularly impactful.
Lily Farhadpour and Esmaeil Mehrabi in ‘My Favourite Cake’
The film was shot during a period of nationwide protests sparked by the tragic death of Mahsa Amini, who passed away in police custody following her arrest for violating hijab regulations.
Creating a film like this in such a context is an act of defiance. From the outset, Mahin's decision not to conceal all her hair under a hijab, and her subsequent invitation to Faramarz, a near stranger, to spend the night at her place, challenges societal norms. Unsurprisingly, the Iranian government has retaliated by denying travel visas to Moghaddam and Sanaeeha.
As we follow our protagonists through Tehran and at Mahin’s house, experiencing a taste of forbidden bliss, the tone regularly shifts from moments of pure comedy to delightfully poetic scenes between two old souls who get a shot at happiness, subtly punctuated by painful reminders of the repressive regime their love story lives under.
It is precisely because this long-awaited elation of Mahin and Faramarz against this painful context is so well portrayed as they laugh and dance together like children that the final twist is so hard to swallow.
** spoiler alert **
Following a beautiful scene where they are both sitting under the pouring water in the shower, fully clothed and laughing, Faramarz goes for a nap while Mahin bakes him a cake. She goes to wake him up to taste the cake a few minutes later, but he never wakes up. In under five minutes the movie wraps up with Mahin crying alone in her house.
Granted, considering the real-world circumstances and the fact that the filming had to be done in secret, Moghaddam and Sanaeeha may have found it necessary to emphasize the grim realities faced by women under the nation's oppressive regime in their own way. But this choice of ending feels like a punishment for Mahin and a warning for the audience. Why embed the emancipatory spirit of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement within its narrative so deeply if it’s to smother it in the final minutes?
If Faramarz had been taken away from her by the regime’s police, it would have felt different. It would have been a clear denunciation of the repression. But having Faramarz die of natural causes at the peak of their happiness sounds almost like a warning: don’t you transgress the rules because this is what happens. You are right to be scared, because this act of rebellion in the eyes of the regime has brought death. And now we are left watching Mahin burying his body alone clandestinely in her garden, sobbing. It feels like retribution for stepping out of line.
The shock effect of the burial scene feels like a stab in the back. She chased happiness and dared to invite a man at her home, so she has to bury him in sin. In the moment, we don’t make too much of the nosy and judgmental neighbour who comes to warn Mahin a few hours before Faramarz death, but in retrospect, she was their final reality check. She was the grim reminder, the last warning that they are doing something they should not and that they should expect consequences because it was too good to be true all along.
It’s devastating to love a movie so much until the last 5 minutes, so exceptionally we will give two ratings. For us, it’s a five star until the final twist.