Review
KITCHEN STORIES
Starring Tomas Norstrom and Joachim Calmeyer
Written and directed by Bent Hamer
Opens Friday April 16
Uptown Screen
Outsiders generally see Scandinavia as a single, homogeneous culture, but it is as prone to local rivalries and resentments as any other region. The Norwegians, for example, see the Swedes as pushy and smug, something I'd always felt was a bit rich, coming from a nation that still prides itself on having brightened up the Dark Ages by torching every shorefront property from Ireland to the Ukraine – until I saw Kitchen Stories.
The setting is the Swedish-Norwegian border of the 1950s. While the rest of Europe is still cleaning up the mess left behind by the recent unpleasantness, the once-neutral Swedes are quietly preparing for world domination.
Having modernized the Swedish housewife's workplace in a preliminary bout of rationalization, the Swedish Institute of Domestic Research kicks off its campaign for global interior design hegemony with a recon mission: investigate the domestic habits of middle-aged rural Norwegian bachelors by parking a platoon of time and motion experts in their kitchens, 18 hours a day for a period of six weeks.
It's a premise that will only seem implausible to those who have never visited their local Ikea, but instead of taking this into the realm of Austin Powers-like farce (as some of the opening imagery suggests), writer-director Bent Hamer (there's a cheap joke to be found in there somewhere) opts instead for a deadpan anthropological comedy, pitched somewhere between Aki Kaurismaki (Man Without a Past, Hamlet Goes Business) and Jacques Tati (Mon Oncle, Playtime).
Tomas Norstrom and Joachim Calmeyer play Folke and Issak, Swedish observer and Norwegian observer, and the heart of this film is the grudgingly slow friendship that develops between the two, even as each seems to remain just one small disappointment away from suicide. Somehow the paired clichés of buddy movie and claustrophobic character study balance each other out in quite a charming fashion and, with Kitchen Stories’ lovingly crafted Scandinavian retro look, it all adds up to an enjoyable if not breathtakingly original film-viewing experience. |
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