My Favourite Cake
Iran must be one of the few countries in the world where filmmakers can be penalised and even prosecuted for making a romantic comedy about an elderly widow looking for love. Knowing the draconian ways of the Iranian authorities, I watched this film – which has been described as ‘charming’ and ‘delightful’ – with a growing sense of anxiety for the lead characters and for the writer-directors, husband and wife team, Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghadam.
The plot, as with most Iranian films, is deceptively simple. Mahin (Lili Farhadpour) is a 70-year-old former nurse, whose husband died 30 years ago. Her children have grown up and left the country, her old friends live far away and get together hardly more than once a year. In an early scene Mahin entertains the girls at home, on her birthday. Their present is a blood pressure monitor. As all the married women now seem to be widows, this is a source of much black humour. One tells how she was picked up by a “perfect gentleman”, one says she can’t see the point of a husband. Another believes a woman always needs a man in her life.
Mahin takes these thoughts to heart. As old age encroaches, her loneliness has become crushing. She sleeps badly, her children have little time for her, she has no-one to share her cooking or her still flickering lust for life. Taking matters into her own hands, she makes a decision that would be daring enough in any place, and goes out to actively search for a man.
During this quest there is some mild comedy. She visits the “coffee shop” of the Hyatt Hotel, where she went to parties in the days before the Revolution, and finds herself in an almost empty room. There she is offered an affogato – a term not in her vocabulary. She edges closer to an anonymous man at the bakery, asking: “Is this the line to buy two loaves.” He replies, “No, it’s the line for one loaf.”
In the park she prevents an officer of the Morality Police from arresting a young woman accused of showing too much hair from beneath her hijab. This is a bold thing to do, considering the brutal reputation of these policemen, which led – with the death of Mahsa Amini in September 2022 - to protests and a wave of state-sponsored repression which has yet to end.
Finally, in the Pensioners’ Café, she overhears an elderly man telling a group of friends that he has no-one waiting for him at home. In a flash, Mahin decides this is the man she has been longing to meet. She finds out his name is Faramarz (Esmaeel Mehrabi), and that he drives a taxi. With no hesitation she waits for him at the taxi bureau and asks him to drive her home. What follows is a remarkable, spontaneous evening, as Mahin and Faramarz tell each other the stories of their lives, drink wine, dance, and go from being complete strangers to professing their love for each other – all in the space of a few hours.
It's a magical sequence, played convincingly by two fine actors, but it feels too good to last. The nosy neighbour is prying around, saying she heard a man’s voice, while Faramarz is visibly struggling to keep up, even as he declares this is the greatest night of his life.
For the viewer, it feels almost hallucinogenic to see Mahin bare-headed, wearing make-up, drinking wine and dancing with an old bloke she picked up at the taxi stand. It flaunts every rule the Mullahs seek to enforce and seems incredibly risky. For many westerners who have visited Iran, it will also be familiar. As soon as people get behind closed doors it’s not unusual for the hijabs to come off, the booze brought out of the closet, and the music turned up.
I won’t reveal how this party ends, although it’s not hard to predict. Unlike those ‘mature age’ romcoms of the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel variety that set one’s teeth on edge, My Favourite Cake never allows us to sink into sentimentality. This is not just a film about coping with the ravages of old age, it asks us to consider what it’s like to grow old under an authoritarian, theocratic regime, while holding on to your memories of more easy-going times. Mahin sees her age as a shield against the oppressive morality forced on a largely unwilling population, but she is playing with fire.
Faramarz has fought and been wounded in the war with Iraq and divorced by a wife who found him insufficiently religious. His wild night with Mahin feels like divine compensation for decades of mere existence. It’s through the experiences of lonely people such as Mahin and Faramarz that we feel the poverty, isolation and sterility of life in Iran today. It’s also a depressing vision of the future for younger generations whose frustrations are pushing them inexorably towards rebellion.
It requires a good deal of bravery to make a film such as My Favourite Cake, kicking against the boundaries of what is permissible under this regime. It should come as no surprise that the filmmakers, Sanaeeha and Moghadam, have found it difficult to get visas to leave the country to attend international premieres. As of September, they were under house arrest, facing charges of breaking Islamic rules and producing anti-government propaganda. They have been banned from making films and may yet be imprisoned for their effrontery in showing a 70-year-old woman without a hijab.
And the cake? Mahin has a cake in the oven while she and Faramaz are enjoying their romantic evening, but it’s more symbol than dessert. It’s about hopes unfulfilled and simple pleasures denied. We are left with the thought that in Iran today there are many cakes baked in secret, never to be tasted in public.
My Favourite Cake
Written & directed by Behtash Sanaeeha & Maryam Moghadam
Starring: Lili Farhadpour, Esmaeel Mehrabi, Mansoore Ilkhani, Soraya Orang, Homa Amttahedin, Sima Esmaeili, Aman Rahimi, Azim Mashhadi, Saaed Payamipoor, Ali Asghar Nejat
Iran/France/Sweden/Germany, M, 97 mins