First I want to say I was a bit nervous going to watch it because I am uncomfortable with gay sex scenes (there's 2 very brief scenes...wasn't too bad). The story is beautifully told and you do forget that Thomas is fully aware that Oren is married, that Oren is cheating on his wife, and that Thomas basically lied to Oren's family about who he is (although it appeared that maybe Oren's mother knew who Thomas was when no one else did which I wish they showed more of). The last 10 minutes could be interpreted in a few ways: 1. Oren is upset and sadden that he was discovered since he ended up falling in love with the widow (I don't think this is it) 2. Oren is upset and sadden that he was discovered since he felt for the first time to be a part of a family 3. Oren is upset and sadden that he was discovered since being with Oren's widow, family, and city made him feel like Oren was still alive (this is what I think he was feeling)In any case it ends with Oren's widow traveling to Berlin seeing Thomas leaving the bakery (he doesn't see her). This could imply different things such as: 1. She simply wanted to see where her husband's secret life originated from 2. She wanted to speak to Thomas 3. She just wanted cake (I LOLed in the theater when an elderly man said that loudly to his wife...he said something like "Well, maybe she just missed his cake!")Oren is frequently seen in flashbacks however you learn more about him upon his death...Thomas goes to his locker at the gym and finds condoms (could imply Oren was having an affair with someone in Israel or that he just hid his condoms in there before he sees Thomas), swim shorts, and a towel in it...Oren loved or deeply cared for Thomas as his widow finds a box with every receipt that Oren saved from his outings with Thomas, along with lists in Thomas's writing...Oren was going to leave his wife and son to be with Thomas (according to his widow), or maybe Oren had someone else in Germany?This is also one of those movies where one simple thing would have completely changed the outcome...Oren could have just left the box of his secret life in the gym locker as his identity wasn't discovered until Oren's widow found Oren's secret phone and heard Thomas's messages (that's another thing...Oren could have password protected his phone or voicemail!).In any case the character of Oren was truly a fascinating character to learn more about based on what he left behind. I also found myself sympathizing with Thomas despite him knowingly having an affair with a married man, and basically lying to Oren's family about his identity and why he was there. There was something truly sad about him and his life in the sense that baking and Oren was his life and that later baking and being a part of Oren's family gave him life through Oren's actual life.

The film opens and closes on images of Thomas's poignant mix of solitude and passion. In the first he's kneading his dough - that's the activity in which he finds both his self-realization and his antidote to loneliness. At the end he rides his bike away from his Berlin bakery job. He's going home - as usual, he thinks - alone, but still warmed by the memory of his beloved Oren and Anat. But he's not alone. Anat has tracked him down. She glows with anticipation of their reconnecting. The last image - the clouded skies - signify their challenging but promising future. The film stops before we know if and how they will recover their love. We may guess as we prefer. Thomas doesn't lock the front door when he leaves that cafe then. Maybe it locks itself upon closing. Or his leaving it unlocked may signify his openness to Anat's return to his love. This film's metaphors work that naturally, like Anat's radiance at eating Thomas's cakes and bread - that's love at first bite. So too the sensuality of Thomas's baking, the comforting softness in his colour, fleshiness and overall nature. Here love is not romance but an openness to emotions and to life. This film abounds with scenes of such quiet suggestions, revelations, nuances in relationship. In the first scene the two men are already familiar with each other - Thomas remembers what pastry Oren doesn't like. Arriving in Jerusalem, Thomas's isolation is caught in one shot where he's shrunk to the lower right of the screen, passed by two gesticulating orthodox Jews. The framing and extras define him as alien. In the shower room at Oren's club Thomas looks at a handsome Jew, then down at his - we infer - uncut alternative. After stealing a smoke outside after her shabbes dinner, we see Anat boxed in the window frame luxuriating in the verboten last crumbs of his Black Forest Cake. She licks her plate. That frame evokes the religious restriction Moti imposes that she must transcend to find fulfilment with Thomas - as, too, her later discovery that her present lover was her husband's first. Wordlessly Thomas warms Anat's runaway son, then involves him in icing the cookies. As with Anat, Thomas slips into an easy bond with the boy, despite his uncle Moti's impediments. In scene after scene the import is in a glance, a gesture, hardly ever verbalized. Thomas (and we) never learn how Oren's mother twigged to his affair with her son. We just see her immediate warmth towards him, her generosity, and her tacit knowing. That understanding lies beyond Anat's brother Moti, whose initial disdain for "the German" takes cover under the formal strictures of the kosher. in his shares invitation. Moti makes an effort to accept Thomas - as in his shabbes invitation. But Oren's mother and son are instinctively drawn to Thomas - as is Anat. In their first sexual engagement Anat takes the initiative. Thomas's intention has only been to help her. The passion is unexpected. Perhaps the key to the film's conception of love lies in the scenes where Thomas asks Oren to describe his most recent love-making with Anat. Initially we might read the scenes as simply erotic. But the context gives them rather more depth and characterization. There is no jealousy, no bitterness. Rather Thomas's embrace of Oren is so complete that it can include the other objects of Oren's love, his wife and his son. When Thomas makes love to Anat later it is with the memory, gestures and emotion he recalls from Oren. Here is a film where love might conquer all. Hence all the divisions that are set up - German vs Jew, Berlin vs Jerusalem, bereaved Insider family vs embarrassing Outsider rival, gentile vs Jew, wife vs lover, heterosexual vs homosexual love, etc. Thomas's and Anat's love for Oren make their falling in love with each other seem entirely credible - however unconventional. How many lovers discover they have any such strong bond in common? Oren's mother loved him enough to accept his lover Thomas; so Anat apparently grows to, too. But that acceptance too takes faith. Maybe that's why Thomas's cafe is called Credence. You have to believe.

Here we have a beautiful movie about a woman who apparently has given up religious observance (why?) and opened a cafe although she's not particularly good in the kitchen (why?) and a couple of men who fall in love with each other (why?) but although they're extremely underwritten characters, you don't notice because you're carried along by the pacing and the photography and the architecture and the music and some nice cakes and cookies. ("What cafe would serve such a big slice of cake?" my wife says.) It doesn't hurt that the actors are well chosen, including one of Israel's top actresses, Sara Adler, who seems to specialize in strong but quietly uncertain women. Any movie featuring her is worth seeing, even if there isn't much else to it (as in, for example, 2012's "Aya").

This first feature from Israeli director Ofir Raul Graizer has been picking up prizes around the world. It's easy to see why. The story of a young German pastry chef who makes a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and inveigles his way into the life of his male lover's widow without revealing his identity is beautifully told and although tragic ultimately satisfying. At the London Film Festival, where the film was nominated for the Sutherland prize, Graizer revealed that he developed the story from one he'd heard. Each scene is simply but expertly shot and the overall effect is profoundly moving. The Israeli cast, particularly Sarah Adler as the widow, is as good as we've come to expect from this country's actors; but Tim Kalkhof as the boy - quiet melancholy masking a huge depth of emotion - is superb. An award for this role must be on the cards.The couple's sex scene in a kitchen, covered in only two takes, is electrifying. Along the way Graizer also deals with the mysteries of kosher rituals, while the food preparation becomes almost hypnotic. One expects the impossible situation that develops to be unresolvable and for the film to stop abruptly. But there is a suggestion of a happy ending. The characters are so well drawn that this is a film that will stay with you long after the final fade.