The President’s Cake Review: Childhood Under Saddam’s Rule

The President’s Cake is a devastating drama that mixes childhood innocence with poverty, fear and the ridiculous demands of a dictatorship.

Humor, sadness and a stark reminder of what human rule can, and still does, do

Plot

In 1990s Iraq, 9-year-old Lamia must bake the President's birthday cake. She scrambles to find ingredients for this compulsory task while facing potential punishment if she fails.

Good Points

• Baneen Ahmed Nayyef is excellent.

• The Iraqi setting looks great.

• Good mix of sadness and humor.

• The political stuff works well without constant explaining.

Bad Points

• The pacing is a tad slow in places, but it isn’t too bothersome.

My Thoughts on The President’s Cake

I really liked this

A movie about a child growing up under dictatorships might try and become a kind of very worthy and serious movie, where every scene being seemingly designed to remind you that you’re watching an important movie, and while this doesn’t completely avoid that territory because the subject matter is obviously serious, but it also doesn’t try and beat you over the head with it either.

This is also Hasan Hadi’s feature debut - he grew up in Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s presidency and has drawn on his own memories for the film, so there is that personal connection to the material too, rather than somebody who has simply researched the period and decided it would make an interesting movie, which definetly comes across while watching it.

Baneen Ahmed Nayyef is brilliant

Child performances are always be a bit hit and miss, as I am sure you know, especially when the subject matter is serious, but Nayyef is excellent here, where she gets that balance right between the lighter and darker parts of the film, which I am sure isn’t easy considering what the movie is dealing with, as there is still plenty of childishness there for her to play with, which also helps stop the whole thing becoming one long miserable exercise in watching people suffer.

Sajad Mohamad Qasem is equally good, and the two young actors give the film a lot of its personality.

The Iraqi setting

The early-1990s Iraqi setting is interesting to watch as well, particularly because Hadi actually filmed in Iraq, and the locations, interiors, streets, clothing and general appearance of the country all seem fit the period properly (I am guessing of course because I was not there), but there isn’t that polished modern look that can make historical films feel a bit too artificial.

The film also doesn’t try to turn Saddam Hussein into some giant movie villain wandering around in the background for you to understand what his government meant to ordinary people as his image, the propaganda and the constant presence of the regime are enough, and the way children are taught to behave and speak tells you quite a lot about the society without somebody having to stand there and give you a history lesson as you watch.

It was also interesting to watch how it doesn’t make everyone living under those conditions behave exactly the same way - some people are frightened, some are more accepting of the system, some are simply trying to get through the day, and that makes much more sense than having every character suddenly become a political commentator, because as we know, Suddam did have his supporters too.

There is some good humor in it

Considering how depressing the subject matter is, the film actually has a decent amount of humor, and I’m glad Hadi included it because without those moments I think the whole thing would have become hard work to watch.

A lot of the humor comes from the ridiculousness of bureaucracy and the way political nonsense gets mixed up with ordinary life, where you can laugh at some of it because it is absurd, but then you remember that the people involved don’t have the luxury of simply switching it off and going home.

It does of course also feature some genuinely upsetting moments as well, particularly because you’re watching children in a situation that they obviously didn’t choose and can’t simply walk away from, and Hadi could have pushed that much harder and turned the whole thing into emotional torture, but he doesn’t seem interested in squeezing a tear out of the audience constantly, which did help the emotional parts work better for me because the film gives you enough lighter material to make the difficult scenes stand out even more.

For a first feature, I think Hadi has done a seriously good job - oh, and I also won’t spoil anything about the cake side of things.

Final Verdict

I really liked the mixture of humor and sadness on show here, where the film gives you a pretty good idea of what ordinary life would look like under Saddam, and was an interesting watch that garnered a few different emotions.

Film Credits

Directed and written by Hasan Hadi

Produced by Leah Chen Baker

Starring Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Sajad Mohamad Qasem, Waheed Thabet Khreibat and Rahim AlHaj

Cinematography - Tudor Vladimir Panduru

Edited by - Andu Radu

Running time - 105 minutes

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