With a large pile of new queer cinema sitting on my desk waiting to be reviewed, it may appear obtuse to set them aside for a moment and view one that was released some 8 years ago. Why The Cakemaker slipped through my hands at that time is a mystery to me, but reading about it being re-released prompted me to go back and seek it out.  And I am so very pleased I did. 

It’s the feature film debut of queer Israeli writer/director Ofir Raul Graizer, and after winning 7 Ophir Awards (Israeli Oscars) it became the Israeli submission for the Academy Award in 2019. Graizer commutes between Israel and Germany just like the protagonist in The Cakemaker, which was inspired by his own experiences and those of a friend.

Thomas (Tim Kalkhof) runs a small cafe. bakery in Germany, and one of his regular customers is Oren (Roy Miller) an Israeli transportation engineer who visits Berlin occasionally on business,  and who always makes a point of leaving with a box of cinnamon cookies as a present for his wife.  There is an unspoken tension between the two, and on one trip, Oren asks Thomas to help him shop and pick up a toy train for his sex year old son. We never see the two of them in the toy shop, as in the next shot they in a bar sharing a glass of wine and a kiss 

Fast forward several months, and the two of them are living together in Berlin on every chance Oren can get away.  Then one day that he is  expected in Germany he didn’t appear, and to make it worse, he doesn’t answer any of Thomas’s frantic phone calls.  Thomas thinks he has been ghosted, but when he digs deeper, he discovers that in fact, Oren has been killed in a car accident in Jerusalem.

So on a whim,Thomas shuts up shop and heads to Jerusalem.  His mission is unclear ….. to both him and us …but when he discovers that Oren’s widow Ana. (Sarah Adleals) also runs a cafe, he charms her into giving him a job .  At first he is her dishwasher but when he reveals his skills at baking, she has him making cakes which become the most popular items in the cafe.  Throughout this time no-one has any idea of why he wanted to be there, and although her Brother-In-Law is supicious of Thomas,  his concern is more to do with the fact with a non-Jew cooking there they could lose there Kosher certification.  However when Thomas meets Orem’s mother there is sense that she knows who Thomas really is, and in silently acknowledging this appears to giving her approval. 

It’s Kalkhof’s almost emotionless perfomance that is such an understated tour-de-force.  A man of few words he seems to work his grief out by immersing himself in backing, which after his late lover, is his only other passion. His strength of purpose and silent good heartedness is enough for Ana to find herself falling in love with he husband’s lover

If there is any criticism at all, is that at times the pace slows down too much, but however not enough to stop  getting enraptured with Thomas and his story. : it is a sheer joy, and I’m so thrilled that I went back in time to get immersed in this tender tale.