Alonso Ruizpalacios’ La Cocina is a riveting culinary drama unfolding in the heart of Times Square, capturing the essence of contemporary America and the struggle for survival in late-stage capitalism.
La Cocina is an arrestingly beautiful black and white microcosm of contemporary America, set in the electrifying pressure cooker of a Times Square kitchen diner. Class systems, immigrant experiences and abortion access form the bedrock of this arresting social drama, which feels like an even more prescient watch in the runup to this year’s critical U.S. election. Playing on a timeless theme, Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios captures the failure of the American dream through the frenetic energy of The Grill (the diner in question) in his fourth feature film, presented in the Competition section of the 74th Berlinale.
Based on the 1950s drama The Kitchen by left wing British playwright Arnold Wesker, Ruizpalacios brings his own experiences as a kitchen worker in a big city to this adaptation. On the fast paced, low paid world of catering, he states, “Kitchens become a microcosm of how the world works. A caste system develops. And what attracts me to that subject matter is how one survives a place like that. And the only way is through friendship and camaraderie.” I think anyone who’s worked in the food or service sector can relate to this sense of camaraderie, defiance and the misplaced pride that develops from working in environments like this. Underlying the relationships within La Cocina, however, is the ever present awareness that no-one wants to be there, they’re all fighting for their place in the brutal U.S. system. “The kitchen’s a place where everyone can be friends and talk and laugh, but when rush hour comes, it’s every man for himself. Seeing that firsthand is brutal. It’s lonely and competitive. So, of course, it’s the perfect metaphor for late-stage capitalism.”
At the heart of the plot lies the intense and fraught relationship between Rooney Mara’s Julie and Raúl Briones’ Pedro. The pair live out their love affair amongst a cacophony of angry customers, frustrated line cooks and overwrought managers. Both Mara and Briones give stellar performances; Mara, understated and powerful, Briones sizzling with intensity. Ruizpalacios said on his choice of Mara that after seeing her in Carol he realised he needed her for the role of Julie, “I started writing, and I began picturing her partly because… She’s just so good at subtext… She could communicate so much with so few words. She’s really intense.” Briones gives a similarly brilliant performance, with all the rawness and heat of a young Al Pacino.
The choreography of the near dozen characters creates an electrifying on screen symphony as we are guided through the twists and turns, trials and tribulations of each of the staff members. Estela (played by Anna Diaz) serves as our guide to this world, a young Mexican immigrant speaking little English, who stumbles into her first day on the job just as the manager discovers $800 is missing from the books. With Pedro as the prime suspect – everyone seemingly knows that he needs the money to pay for Julie’s abortion – the focus of the plot shifts away from Estela and onto abortion access, the role of visas in love (‘amore de la mia visa’), and the exploitative, ridiculously demanding job that the melting pot of workers faces day in, day out.
The reflection of contemporary America becomes further pronounced when looking into the backstory of the filming of La Cocina. Anna Diaz herself had never left Mexico before the shoot and the process of getting her a visa took over two years. When she finally arrived, speaking very little English, she was taken by the film crew to Brooklyn, given a subway fare, and told to make her way to the address of The Grill restaurant – and voila, the opening scene of La Cocina, shot documentary style. Ruizpalacios shows the harsh reality of the cold, the language, and the scary unfamiliarity of a migrants’ arrival to the U.S.; “This is the story of Mexico, but it’s also the story of the United States, the story of all these immigrants who travel there, chasing this dream. But what happens on the other side, what is the price of this dream?”
The cinematography is stunning and the experimental shots used to portray memory, anxiety and loss add an incredible amount to the artistry of the film. Black and white for the most part, with the occasional burst of colour during the walk-in freezer scenes, I was reminded strongly of The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover – a 1980s British masterpiece set in the world of a mafia run, high end restaurant, which similarly explores the sensuality of a clandestine kitchen affair. The climax of La Cocina reaches epic proportions and although I left the screening feeling that I would potentially have enjoyed the film slightly more had 15 minutes been cut from the overall run time, it was a truly stunning film that has sat with me ever since. Afterall, it’s tough not to love a New York kitchen drama…
