The President’s Cake is tenderly told and finds joy in the face of adversity
Let her make cake: Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, right, excels as the resourceful Lamia in The President's Cake, which feels less like a period piece and more like present-day newsreel. Photo / Supplied
The President’s Cake, directed by Hasan Hadi, is in cinemas now.
When Iraqi film-maker Hasan Hadi won the Camera d’Or at Cannes for best first feature last year, there wasn’t yet a war raging between the US, Israel and Iran. But his sweetly perceptive family drama – set in 1990s southern Iraq as coalition forces cause civilian casualties in retaliation for Iraq’s invasion of nearby Kuwait – now feels less like a period piece and more like present-day newsreel.
As posters of Saddam Hussein smile from every street corner, little Lamia (Baneen Ahmad Nayyef) lives with her doting grandmother Bibi in the Mesopotamian Marshes as the country prepares for the obligatory state-wide celebration of their president’s birthday.
With the population struggling for food after Western sanctions, Lamia’s family is cursed with the honour of making her class’s celebratory cake when her name is drawn in a ballot. “Fill it with extra cream,” instructs her mean, regime-loyal teacher, “I haven’t had cake in a long time.”
And so, under the threat of punishment for any perceived failure, a starving family living in a reed hut on the marshland is forced to sell its few treasured possessions to buy cake ingredients to celebrate a man they don’t even like. Lamia and her young friend Saeed run around the city begging, borrowing and stealing. Lamia is a smart kid: “Walls have ears,” she chides the more reckless Saeed; but being a child and female means she is in constant danger.
The sexism, including the authorities’ disrespect and disregard of the elderly Bibi, is predictable but no less infuriating. The President’s Cake also presents extraordinary moments of good cheer in the face of extreme adversity, exemplified by a wedding groom who was blinded by American bombs moments before he was to see his new bride for the first time.
Despites some predictable plotting that curtails the emotional impact, it’s an accomplished debut from Hadi, who co-wrote the snappy script with veteran Hollywood screenwriter Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, Munich), and gets impressive performances from an untrained cast, including the doe-eyed Ahmad Nayyef, who as Lamia, is the credibly self-possessed centre of every scene.
Rating out of five: ★★★★