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Dec. 30th, 2019 03:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironicGoing
[TW: alcohol/verbal abuse?]
I got home yesterday from a week in Tennessee with my mom and her bf at the bf's new-ish anticipating-retirement house, same as last winter break. Also the same, I returned ambivalent about the experience: refreshed from the change of scenery and outdoor time in the warmer weather and lack of TV/internet and glad to have spent time with my mom, yet somewhat the worse for wear physically and emotionally, although I'll take this year's hot tub-related rash over last year's wood stove-related itchy eyes and sore throat. I don't like being around fighting family members, especially when there's nowhere else to go, and it continues to disturb me how he talks to her when he's frustrated or drinking; and I missed doing Hanukkah traditions more than I expected to.
Highlights: digging up our own pair of Christmas trees from the woods behind the house, one "real" one and one Charlie Brown-style wimpy one; eating fresh grilled beef and venison; sitting on the porch in short-sleeved shirts playing Scrabble and listening to the neighbor's roosters. We reviewed footage from their motion-activated camera and saw a bear and cub, a coyote and lots of deer; when we played one night with the bf's Xmas present, a pair of infrared binoculars, we saw a skunk on the front lawn. I wrote 400 words or so of miscellaneous fic. I'm trying not to fixate on the bad stuff.
Doing
After putting it off as long as I could, I ordered a new laptop. This post comes to you from it. Reason #1: It will run Windows 10 instead of the Windows 7 that will no longer be supported in about a month, even though I dislike Windows 10. Reason #2: With souped-up components, it's supposed to be able to handle Premiere and After Effects, which would allow me to replace my current, eight- or nine-year-old everyday laptop and vidding desktop with a single, portable machine. I need to see how well it runs within the 30-day return window. It would be nice if everything worked properly, not least because a replacement wouldn't come with a significant holiday discount. $$$
I do have half a Festivids draft. We'll be finishing that on the current/old computer, because we all know it's a bad idea to change programs etc. mid-vid.
Watching
What I actually wanted to tell you about is this Israeli/German movie I watched on Netflix last night while too travel-tired to do anything else, The Cakemaker/Der Kuchenmacher/האופה מברלין [The Baker from Berlin], because it could have been GREAT and instead a single story decision made it THE WORST.
Setup: A man from Israel, Oren, who comes to Berlin regularly on business, starts sleeping with a young bakery owner there, Thomas, whose cakes and cookies he has fallen for. Oren reveals right away that he has a wife and young son, but things carry on anyway. In fact, they begin playing a game in bed where Thomas makes Oren tell him where and when and how he last made love to his wife. Some time into the intermittent but deepening affair, Thomas learns that Oren has died in an accident. Distraught and alone, he flies to Jerusalem to meet Oren's mourning family.
What could have happened next: Thomas asks around, finds Oren's family and learns that his widow, Anat, has just opened a café. He tells her that he was a friend of Oren's from Berlin and volunteers to bake for her customers. They grow closer over their shared grief. She gives him Oren's old clothes to wear; he bakes her the cookies Oren used to bring home for her and the black forest cake Oren seemed to enjoy as much as sex. Thomas becomes ever more enmeshed in Oren's extended family. He and Anat circle each other until finally, inevitably, they sleep together, each imagining Oren in the other's place. It becomes clear what Thomas really meant when he said "friend." Either they become a new sort of family or Thomas returns to Berlin after they both begin to heal.
What the movie actually did: Most of the above, EXCEPT Thomas never tells Anat he knew Oren. So he shows up in Jerusalem, stalks Anat at the market and creeps around peering into windows until he finds her bakery. He pretends to be an ignorant student looking for a job and keeps patronizing the café until she hires him, whereupon he charms his way up from dishwasher to barista to near-partner. He lies to conceal his identity and his relationship with Oren. He uses Oren's old keys to break into places Oren used to frequent. He steals and/or allows others to give him Oren's old clothes, which he rolls around in naked in his apartment. He gets himself invited to dinner at Anat's home and babysits their son. He lets Anat come on to him and then have sex with him, remembering all the secrets Oren told him while she remains ignorant. All while he's filmed in light and at angles like a creepy predator. WHY. It was all so unnecessary. Of course, Anat finally figures out that Thomas is the "someone in Berlin" Oren confessed he wanted to leave her for the day he died, and she kicks him out of Israel in a fury.
Ughhhhhh. So instead of an unconventional love/grief story, it's a mess, ethically and narratively/thematically. And it plays into stereotypes of gay people as cheaters and predators while also sort of erasing the existence of bisexuality.
(Understanding, though, that the movie may be about something else and/or have different emphases and connotations when you watch it from the perspective of someone living in Israel. Like the subplot about Anat not wanting to cave to pressures to keep kosher or always observe Shabbat. Threats to traditional, orthodox life vs. a contemporary, more secular perspective?)
What they did right: Oren's mother sees right through Thomas' lie about not having known her son. She invites Thomas to her home and touches him tenderly. She teaches him how to make stuffed peppers. She shows him Oren's room and gives him time alone in there. They never acknowledge anything out loud.
What could have stayed the same: Anat's brother(-in-law?) Motti doesn't trust Thomas. He only reluctantly helps Thomas find an apartment where he can bake for the café without invalidating its kosher certification. He tells Oren and Anat's son not to eat anything Thomas bakes. You can read it as they tell it—that Thomas is a non-Jewish German, that his baked goods aren't kosher—or you can add the subtext that Motti recognizes Thomas as a threat to what the family understands about itself, that he introduces the possibility of Oren having been attracted to men, that eating his cakes will make you like him. It's Motti who delivers the ultimatum about Thomas going home.
Trailer on YouTube.
ANYWAY, this was so close to being great. I'd say fix-it fic, except it may not be necessary, since it's so clear how this could have gone.
[TW: alcohol/verbal abuse?]
I got home yesterday from a week in Tennessee with my mom and her bf at the bf's new-ish anticipating-retirement house, same as last winter break. Also the same, I returned ambivalent about the experience: refreshed from the change of scenery and outdoor time in the warmer weather and lack of TV/internet and glad to have spent time with my mom, yet somewhat the worse for wear physically and emotionally, although I'll take this year's hot tub-related rash over last year's wood stove-related itchy eyes and sore throat. I don't like being around fighting family members, especially when there's nowhere else to go, and it continues to disturb me how he talks to her when he's frustrated or drinking; and I missed doing Hanukkah traditions more than I expected to.
Highlights: digging up our own pair of Christmas trees from the woods behind the house, one "real" one and one Charlie Brown-style wimpy one; eating fresh grilled beef and venison; sitting on the porch in short-sleeved shirts playing Scrabble and listening to the neighbor's roosters. We reviewed footage from their motion-activated camera and saw a bear and cub, a coyote and lots of deer; when we played one night with the bf's Xmas present, a pair of infrared binoculars, we saw a skunk on the front lawn. I wrote 400 words or so of miscellaneous fic. I'm trying not to fixate on the bad stuff.
Doing
After putting it off as long as I could, I ordered a new laptop. This post comes to you from it. Reason #1: It will run Windows 10 instead of the Windows 7 that will no longer be supported in about a month, even though I dislike Windows 10. Reason #2: With souped-up components, it's supposed to be able to handle Premiere and After Effects, which would allow me to replace my current, eight- or nine-year-old everyday laptop and vidding desktop with a single, portable machine. I need to see how well it runs within the 30-day return window. It would be nice if everything worked properly, not least because a replacement wouldn't come with a significant holiday discount. $$$
I do have half a Festivids draft. We'll be finishing that on the current/old computer, because we all know it's a bad idea to change programs etc. mid-vid.
Watching
What I actually wanted to tell you about is this Israeli/German movie I watched on Netflix last night while too travel-tired to do anything else, The Cakemaker/Der Kuchenmacher/האופה מברלין [The Baker from Berlin], because it could have been GREAT and instead a single story decision made it THE WORST.
Setup: A man from Israel, Oren, who comes to Berlin regularly on business, starts sleeping with a young bakery owner there, Thomas, whose cakes and cookies he has fallen for. Oren reveals right away that he has a wife and young son, but things carry on anyway. In fact, they begin playing a game in bed where Thomas makes Oren tell him where and when and how he last made love to his wife. Some time into the intermittent but deepening affair, Thomas learns that Oren has died in an accident. Distraught and alone, he flies to Jerusalem to meet Oren's mourning family.
What could have happened next: Thomas asks around, finds Oren's family and learns that his widow, Anat, has just opened a café. He tells her that he was a friend of Oren's from Berlin and volunteers to bake for her customers. They grow closer over their shared grief. She gives him Oren's old clothes to wear; he bakes her the cookies Oren used to bring home for her and the black forest cake Oren seemed to enjoy as much as sex. Thomas becomes ever more enmeshed in Oren's extended family. He and Anat circle each other until finally, inevitably, they sleep together, each imagining Oren in the other's place. It becomes clear what Thomas really meant when he said "friend." Either they become a new sort of family or Thomas returns to Berlin after they both begin to heal.
What the movie actually did: Most of the above, EXCEPT Thomas never tells Anat he knew Oren. So he shows up in Jerusalem, stalks Anat at the market and creeps around peering into windows until he finds her bakery. He pretends to be an ignorant student looking for a job and keeps patronizing the café until she hires him, whereupon he charms his way up from dishwasher to barista to near-partner. He lies to conceal his identity and his relationship with Oren. He uses Oren's old keys to break into places Oren used to frequent. He steals and/or allows others to give him Oren's old clothes, which he rolls around in naked in his apartment. He gets himself invited to dinner at Anat's home and babysits their son. He lets Anat come on to him and then have sex with him, remembering all the secrets Oren told him while she remains ignorant. All while he's filmed in light and at angles like a creepy predator. WHY. It was all so unnecessary. Of course, Anat finally figures out that Thomas is the "someone in Berlin" Oren confessed he wanted to leave her for the day he died, and she kicks him out of Israel in a fury.
Ughhhhhh. So instead of an unconventional love/grief story, it's a mess, ethically and narratively/thematically. And it plays into stereotypes of gay people as cheaters and predators while also sort of erasing the existence of bisexuality.
(Understanding, though, that the movie may be about something else and/or have different emphases and connotations when you watch it from the perspective of someone living in Israel. Like the subplot about Anat not wanting to cave to pressures to keep kosher or always observe Shabbat. Threats to traditional, orthodox life vs. a contemporary, more secular perspective?)
What they did right: Oren's mother sees right through Thomas' lie about not having known her son. She invites Thomas to her home and touches him tenderly. She teaches him how to make stuffed peppers. She shows him Oren's room and gives him time alone in there. They never acknowledge anything out loud.
What could have stayed the same: Anat's brother(-in-law?) Motti doesn't trust Thomas. He only reluctantly helps Thomas find an apartment where he can bake for the café without invalidating its kosher certification. He tells Oren and Anat's son not to eat anything Thomas bakes. You can read it as they tell it—that Thomas is a non-Jewish German, that his baked goods aren't kosher—or you can add the subtext that Motti recognizes Thomas as a threat to what the family understands about itself, that he introduces the possibility of Oren having been attracted to men, that eating his cakes will make you like him. It's Motti who delivers the ultimatum about Thomas going home.
Trailer on YouTube.
ANYWAY, this was so close to being great. I'd say fix-it fic, except it may not be necessary, since it's so clear how this could have gone.
no subject
Date: Dec. 30th, 2019 09:02 pm (UTC)I would watch (or read!) your version in a heartbeat!
no subject
Date: Dec. 30th, 2019 09:44 pm (UTC)Wikipedia says the rights have been sold for a U.S. remake... which might improve it or just make it worse.
no subject
Date: Dec. 31st, 2019 12:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jan. 1st, 2020 04:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Dec. 31st, 2019 03:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Dec. 30th, 2019 09:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Dec. 30th, 2019 09:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Dec. 30th, 2019 09:31 pm (UTC)Aghk.
no subject
Date: Dec. 30th, 2019 09:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Dec. 30th, 2019 09:45 pm (UTC)Especially since the subplot with Oren's mother sounds so good: that could almost have been a film of its own. So it knew one way to do things that wasn't an ethical trash fire.
no subject
Date: Dec. 30th, 2019 10:00 pm (UTC)ETA: All right, Variety offers some help:
"Graizer’s script treats them (and, by extension, the audience) like adults, observing moral errors on all sides, with empathy for everyone’s particular strain of pain"
"What might seem to some a cruelly underhand move — Thomas reveals nothing of his acquaintance with Oren — turns out to have ambiguous, complicated emotional undercurrents: By helping the family of his beloved, is the taciturn German performing a curious kind of penance, or simply finding another way to stay close to him?"
no subject
Date: Dec. 30th, 2019 10:26 pm (UTC)That said, I agree with you that I think I'd like your movie better.
Good parts of The Cakemaker: All the stuff with hands and baking, the bishul akum plotline, the mother-in-law.
no subject
Date: Dec. 30th, 2019 10:59 pm (UTC)Same.
no subject
Date: Jan. 1st, 2020 04:11 pm (UTC)Ah, I like that. Gives her more credit. Like maybe she closed the browser window for the Berlin bakery because she didn't want to know the truth she already suspected.
>>All the stuff with hands and baking
They knead the dough like Oren used to knead their shoulders. <3 <3 She licks the plate like she wants to lick Thomas. :) And all the tender face-touching between lovers and family members.
>>the bishul akum plotline
I had to look that up, but yes! When one of the sites mentioned rules surrounding food, wine and bread, it added another dimension for me to what Thomas brought Anat - extra meaning when he gave her that loaf of bread after having baked for her and brought her wine, and she ate it in the car and smiled, like completing the (un)holy trifecta, like sealing fate.
no subject
Date: Dec. 31st, 2019 02:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jan. 1st, 2020 04:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Dec. 31st, 2019 02:30 am (UTC)And after watching the trailer I now want Schwarzwaelderkirschtorte!
no subject
Date: Jan. 1st, 2020 04:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Dec. 31st, 2019 03:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jan. 1st, 2020 04:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Dec. 31st, 2019 04:55 pm (UTC)Fingers crossed for the laptop to do the things it says it will!
no subject
Date: Jan. 1st, 2020 04:13 pm (UTC)You'd think after 10 years I'd be used to this guy, but there are some things one shouldn't get used to, I guess, plus I don't live nearby so I don't see him that often.