Tom's Recommended Film of the Week

Kitchen Stories

Being a market analyst and a student of statistics, I was intrigued by the premise of Kitchen Stories. Conducting a study of people’s movements about the kitchen during daily life, without interfering! What a concept. Must be a comedy. I know that traffic patterns in my kitchen at home are always comedic.

But Kitchen Stories offers the viewer a nice taste of humanity among the sight and situational gags. Even with it’s slow pace and decidedly light touch, the film sticks with you a while, especially certain images, like the high chair, the home trailers, the diagrams and the warmth of the pipe.

Much of Kitchen Stories is almost a silent comedy, but as things warm up in the main relationship, dialog enters the picture. With or without dialog, this is a nice little film, filled with the dry Scandinavian sense of humor and irony. To most viewers this will be something entirely different and perhaps incomprehensible, but I like to give new things a try now and again.

Kitchen Stories , with its foreign sensibilities, may not become your favorite comedy, but at least it will give you a sense of how essential friendship can become during the long cold Northern winters.