The primary focus is Thomas, a reserved German pastry chef, who is content in his life. Oren, a married Israel guy frequently visits Berlin every month and they fall in love for almost a year and are pretty serious about each other. A freak accident kills Oren and Thomas is devastated. Thomas is now longing to find out details and decides to visit Jerusalem to meet Oren's wife Anat and his son. Anat, not religious herself, runs a cafe in Jerusalem but is also kind of controlled by Motti (Oren's brother) who is still strict about religion and regulations. Thomas visits her cafe as a customer and soon manages to get a job as a cleaner in the cafe. Soon Thomas skills as a pasty chef become very evident and he starts baking for the cafe, thereby increasing the business. He also does get a warm welcome by Oren's mother and increasingly starts getting close to Anat as well. And finally they make love. But soon Anat realizes, that Thomas is the same person, about whom, Oren had told her that he has met someone in Berlin and would like to move to Berlin. Thomas is immediately pushed out back to Berlin, only later to be visited by Anat to make sure he is doing ok.
Before I talk any further, I have to comment on Thomas' performance. It is such a still, calm and silent performance that speaks just with eyes. The man is grieving on the death of his lover but cannot show. He is mysteriously absent yet present in past. All his interactions with Anat and her family, are strictly business, even though he wants to touch and connect. He yearns for any connection that he can have with his lover(the scene is the swimming club is an example). Only later we find out the reason that he stays so disconnected is because Oren never wanted Anat to find out. The last sceen when finally Thomas cries his heart out once he realizes that Oren's family now knows the secret shows us how much pain has he been carrying in his heart. It killed me to watch him like that. The film treats issues of sexuality and sexual identity as subtly and indirectly, as so is religion. It’s just a tender love triangle with a dead man in the middle. Like Thomas, all the other characters are also beautifully portrayed. One thing that wasn't clear to me was whether Oren's mother knew who Thomas was. Their 2 scenes together makes me want to believe she knew who he was, but its hard to say. Also , the film is slow, but it more than makes up for it in the beautiful and delicious looking cakes, pastries and cookies.
In a broad, non-judgmental way, this film depicts love and loss, unbound by social and cultural divides, without taking sides. A beautiful, honest, and melancholic piece, a tale of emotional journey and life after tragedy. Besides the pace of the film, I can't think of any reason why anyone would not like this film. I wanna reach out and give Thomas one big hug. (8.5/10)
Comments