Review: “The President’s Cake”

The opening title card of The President’s Cake presents a paradox so absurd, it can only be real: following the start of the Gulf War in 1990, UN-imposed sanctions on Iraq greatly restrict the country’s resources, causing even the most common household staples to become not only expensive, but scarce, for average citizens. And yet President Saddam Hussein, in a reflection of an outlook so conceited, it would be comically were so many lives not hanging in the balance, still expects civilians to show up in full force to celebrate his birthday. That includes baking a cake, with all the trimmings.

But then we’re introduced to Lamia (Baneen Ahmed Nayyef), a nine-year-old Iraqi girl who lives with her Bibi (Waheed Thabet Khreibat), and their quiet, if meager, existence in the Mesopotamian Marshes. She has a pet rooster, Hindi, and a best friend, Saeed (Sajad Mohamad Qasem), and traverses the wetlands where she lives by boat. This child’s perspective on life under an authoritarian regime comes into sharp focus when, two days before his birthday, Lamia’s name is drawn by her teacher to bake her school’s cake for Hussein, or face punishment, whether she can acquire or afford the pricey ingredients: flour, sugar, and eggs.

In some respects, Hasan Hadi’s debut feature film— drawn from his own memories of growing up under Hussein’s presidency— plays like one of Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami’s road movies, in which children embark on simple quests that play out like treacherous, life-altering odysseys. Set over a condensed period of time, Lamia escapes from her grandmother—who, too old and sick to continue caring for her, uses the act of going shopping for the cake ingredients as a pretense to drop her off with her new foster family— and, joined by Saeed and Hindi, sets out to gather the groceries on her own. It’s the sort of errand that most of us wouldn’t bat an eyelash at today, but is a nearly insurmountable feat for the kids, who are forced to make difficult trades for money and food, and who are met with unexpected delays and side missions courtesy of the adults they attempt to bargain with, from a shopkeeper whose pregnant wife suddenly goes into labor, to the attendant at a fancy cake store, who refuses to believe the children can afford anything in the shop on their appearance alone.

Their journey through an immaculately-recreated early 1990s Iraq— featuring real locations lensed by DP Tudor Vladimir Panduru on film in widescreen that grants the movie a gorgeous vintage sheen that prompts it to read more like a historic document than a piece of narrative nostalgia— could easily have come off as too cutesy, were it not for the committed performances of Nayyef (who easily embodies Lamia’s earnest, determined spirit) conveys  and Qasem and Hadi’s keen observations that always keep the politics of the moment in, at the very least, the background of the frame. This comes in the form not just of news reports, but in the propaganda the students are forced to espouse in school (in orderly lines, they chant “Long live our leader!” while a portrait of the President maintains a watchful gaze over their classroom), in the obvious economic strain that everyone they run in to, not just Lamia and her family, are under, and in the uncaring nature of the government that ought to be looking out for their well-being, establishing even roadside stops for donations for the President’s birthday where people can barely afford to take care of themselves. The President’s Cake loses some of its momentum, in addition to that clear-eyed youth perspective, when it occasionally flips from its small protagonist back to Bibi, who runs into relentless amounts of red tape as she frantically tries to convince the police to help her find the missing Lamia. But even those scenes still have weight; the authorities are too busy preparing for Hussein’s birthday to care about tracking down a poor, little runaway.

Perhaps there’s a edge of emotional manipulation inherent in running children through so many harrowing exercises. Outside of the occasional rush of excitement that comes with being thrust out in the world on your own for the first time, there’s little levity sprinkled throughout the film, in which the children already carry themselves with an air of maturity far beyond their years. Even a fraught argument between Lamia and Saeed reads more as an adult confrontation than a childlike squabble. But it’s in the disparity between innocence and violence, peaking at its startling and heart-rending final shot, that The President’s Cake pulls the most meaning— and nuggets of coming-of-age wisdom— out of a seemingly meaningless world.

The President’s Cake opens in theaters on February 6. Runtime: 105 minutes. Rated PG-13.