KITCHEN STORIES (SALMER FRA KJOKKENET) European Showcase

Many filmmakers have focused on the conflict between science, which is presumably cold and rational, and volatile human needs. Few, however, have done it as humorously — or with as much heart — as Bent Hamer in KITCHEN STORIES.

Falke (Tomas Norstrom) is an employee of a Swedish home science company assigned to observe the kitchen habits of a single Norwegian widower (to aid in more efficient kitchen design). His recalcitrant subject is Isak (Joachin Calmeyer), a farmer almost pathologically devoted to his isolaition Gradually, against their will, the two form a tentative friendship, a kind of bulkbead designed to protect them not only from the harsh conditions but also from their own loneliness.

Hamer has always been a master of deadpan comedy, but KITCHEN STORIES should establish him once and for all as a unique talent. The film does not just make the drive for order and organization seem laughable; it makes it positively surreal.