Israel

The Cakemaker [Der Kuchenmacher]

Link posted on by moviebloke

(Israel / Germany 2017)

During a post screening Q and A, writer and director Ofir Raul Graizer said he “love[s] question marks in cinema.” Well, that shows: with his first feature film The Cakemaker [Der Kuchenmacher], he excels in raising questions that he lets his audience answer. Many people don’t appreciate this approach. I’m not one of them.

Tomas (Tim Kalkhof) is a thirty-something baker who runs his own one-man pastry shop in Berlin. Oren (Roy Miller), a married Israeli man, comes in one morning — maybe he’s really there for breakfast, or maybe he’s cruising.

Turns out, Oren is in Berlin on business, a lot. They begin an affair. Tomas knows about Oren’s wife and son in Jerusalem. Oren has a habit of bringing Tomas’s cinnamon cookies home to his wife as a kind of souvenir. It’s weird.

WARNING: Potential Spoilers Ahead!

After an unsettling visit, all communication with Oren stops. Confused and upset, Tomas tries to reach him at his company’s office in Berlin. A perplexed receptionist (Tagel Eliyahu) informs him that Oren died in a car crash.

Tomas does what any sensible red-blooded German gay guy would do: he closes shop and heads to Jerusalem to find out what happened — and maybe spy on Oren’s family to get an idea of what his life there was like.

He starts by tracking down Oren’s wife, Anet (Sarah Adler), who’s struggling to get a kosher café up and running. More by omission that outright lies, Tomas slowly works his way into her life, getting closer and more entangled without ever letting on that he knew her husband. Anet’s brother-in-law (Zohar Strauss) is dismayed, particularly when Anet hires Tomas, a gentile, as a baker. Things get complicated when his pastries attract a steady clientele to her café.

The Cakemaker isn’t exactly a thriller, but it’s suspenseful. A clear dread hovers over the whole story because it’s apparent that it’s not going to end well. It can’t, not with Tomas’s deceptions. Graizer’s pacing, slow and deliberate, steadily builds to an effective climax that might not be surprising itself but is still more intense than I expected. This is a quiet movie with some real nailbiter moments.

Graizer does a fine job enshrouding Oren in mystery — or maybe it’s shadiness. Anet reveals a zinger or two about their relationship. Sandra Sadeh as Oren’s mother, Hanna, steals each scene she’s in, a total of three. She subtly lets on that she’s wise to her dead gay son — and Tomas.

With Tamir Ben Yehuda, Stephanie Stremler, Iyad Msalma, David Koren, Gal Gonen, Eliezer Shimon, Sagi Shemesh

Production: Film Base Berlin, Laila Films

Distribution: Films Boutique

Screening introduced and followed by a live Q and A with Ofir Raul Graizer

104 minutes
Not rated

(AMC River East) B

Chicago International Film Festival

http://filmsboutique.com/movies/the-cakemaker/

One Week and a Day [Shavua ve Yom]

Video posted on by moviebloke

(Israel 2016)

I suppose in Asaph Polonsky’s first full-length feature, One Week and a Day, nothing can be said to be certain except death and intoxication, the former of course bringing about the latter. With a dry and tentative sense of humor, he demonstrates how different people come to terms with grief as they struggle to move forward.

After sitting shiva for their son and sole offspring, Ronnie, a cancer victim, the Spivaks—Eyal (Shai Avivi) and Vicky (Evgenia Dodina)—gingerly go about getting back into their normal routine over the course of a day. As might be expected, it’s not easy: there’s a lot to do. Eyal, clad in shorts and sandals, isn’t up for the task—any task, it turns out. He decides to try a different approach when on a mission to retreive a blanket of many colors at the hospice where Ronnie died he instead finds his son’s medical marijuana—a humungous unopened foil bag of it.

There’s a lot of pot humor here: hiding the doobage in Eyal’s fly, toking up, hazy discussions, keeping the buzz on the D.L., playing ping pong and games that involve kittens, even an air guitar session with Zooler (Tomer Kapon), the next door neighbor’s son, a big stoner who works in food service and dutifully shows Eyal how to roll a joint (not with a gummy worm). Vicky, a sober school teacher with a lot on her plate, goes about her business jogging, going for a checkup with her dentist, and tutoring a young student in her home while Eyal and Zooler get baked. She gets an idea of her own. While all this is going on, Eyal has until 4:00 p.m. to confirm a reservation for two plots next to Ronnie at an already overcrowded cemetery, or he and Vicky forfeit them forever.

I enjoyed the offbeat humor of One Week and a Day, which has a few downright beautiful scenes—like Zooler’s pretend surgery to remove a hospice patient’s cancer for the benefit of her young daughter. However, the characters suffer from a certain flatness. When the smoke clears, though, this is a touching and often poignant story. The film neatly demonstrates that petty annoyances, drudgery, and boredom are all a part of life and persist even in the face of grief.

Screening followed by a live Q and A with director Asaph Polonsky.

98 minutes
Not rated

(AMC River East) B-

Chicago International Film Festival

http://bsheepfilms.com/portfolio/one-week-and-a-day/

Who’s Gonna Love Me Now? [Mi yohav otti akhshav?]

Link posted on by moviebloke

(Israel/UK 2016)

Barak and Tomer Heymann’s warm documentary, Who’s Gonna Love Me Now?, takes its title from the first thought that crossed subject Saar Maoz’s mind when he received his HIV diagnosis. A likable middle-aged gay guy (he turns 40 during the course of the film), Maoz relocated to London almost two decades ago after he was kicked out his kibbutz in Israel for being gay. It’s been a source of embarrassment for his religious family, whose respect Maoz seems to have lost. He sets out to change that, going back home and confronting his parents and his siblings. He has to get past their fears, their misconceptions about homosexuality and HIV, and worst of all their judgments of him.

Maoz, who sings in the London Gay Men’s Chorus, is oddly charismatic. Relatively unassuming, he leads a seemingly quiet life and doesn’t exactly stand out from the crowd; in fact, he blends in with the other men in virtually every scene with the Chorus (save for one—I won’t say what it’s about). He’s decent, honest, open, and has a good sense of humor with an imperfect past, all of which probably explain his charm. He could be anyone you know, including yourself. I must admit, I related to him on many levels here: his conflicted feelings about his religion, moving away from home and coming out, his sense of distance with some of his family, filling a void with partying in the early 2000s, being alone for a long period of time. He doesn’t come across as regretful or pitiable, just reflective and forward-focused. Filmed over the course of about five years, the best scenes are the ones with his mother, his father, and an argument in a restaurant with his brother. Who’s Gonna Love Me Now? is an often funny and sometimes heavy reminder that home is where you can be yourself, for better or for worse.

Screening followed by a live discussion with Saar Maoz

84 minutes
Not rated

(AMC River East) B-

Chicago International Film Festival

http://heymannfilms.com/film/whos-gonna-love-me-now/