The American dream dissolves into thin air during a rare moment of silence in Alonso Ruizpalacios’ operatic film, La cocina (The Kitchen). On a break from their gruelling jobs in a Times Square restaurant, a small group of employees smoke cigarettes together in a dead-end alley. Prompted by Pedro (Raúl Briones) the sous chef, they recount their overlapping dreams for money, security and love.
When it’s Pedro’s turn he holds his coworkers’ attention with a pregnant pause before leaping to his feet. Without saying a word, he dashes through the stacked-up piles of garbage on his way back inside The Grill. He’s anxious to catch up with Julia (Rooney Mara), his dream girl, before the dinner rush begins. Pedro is propelled forward by a range of unpredictable emotions. He’s a human stoplight, flashing from red to yellow to green and back to red, in seconds.
Tall and angular as a skeleton, Pedro is a dynamic provocateur. He contradicts authority figures, picks at everyone’s vulnerabilities and initiates explosive confrontations. Pedro only lowers his guard during a tryst with Julia in the meat freezer. He whispers his vision of their shared future together in a remote coastal city in Mexico. As an immigrant without papers, he wants a green card as much as he longs to return back home. Lack of money is the great impediment.
Set in an era at least a couple of decades before the advent of cell phones, Ruizpalacios shot the movie in black and white. The colorless cinematography removes any temptation for the filmmaker to feature dishes adorned with foams, gelees and elegant daubs of sauce. La cocina instead captures the chaos and horror of The Grill’s inner life, a kitchen fueled by pounding hearts, fumbling limbs and damaged souls. When a pipe bursts and floods the space, the camera captures a farcical ballet choreographed by a gleeful demon. The scene rivals the best moments from Marx Brothers’ films like Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera.
The camera also weaves around the kitchen employees the way it did in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, another behind-the-scenes New York movie. Each individual is studied close up. Almost everyone is provided with at least one trenchant monologue. On their first day at the job, Estela (Anna Díaz) and Laura (Laura Gómez) must both contend with the baffling responses of an antagonistic Pedro. A few stations away, Max (Spenser Granese), one of several line cooks, hasn’t recovered from the previous night’s confrontation with Pedro. The tension between them builds until it pops.
Part of the implicit conflict stems from Max’s jealousy. He looks at Julia the way Pedro does but remains stubbornly nonverbal. She responds to Pedro’s sense of play and imagination. While she cleans the panes of glass on the enormous dining room aquarium, Julia and Pedro banter and tease each other like urban versions of Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing. Sparked by flirtation and conflict, their chemistry begins with wordplay.
Language also proves liberating for the waitresses, hosts, managers, dishwashers and cooks while they set up for the lunch service. They form an impromptu chorus to let off some steam. Comparable to that famous cuss-out sequence in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, the employees start rattling off a series of filthy four-letter words and epithets to each other. Ruizpalacios makes quick jump cuts to bump up the pacing. They all try to outdo each other in English and Spanish, coming up with the dirtiest insults until everyone starts laughing. It helps them cope with the daunting rush they’re about to confront.
The personal melodramas define the characters but also serve the narrative arc of Ruizpalacios’ grand tableau. After Pedro drops several lobsters into the aquarium, the director films them slowly descending to the bottom of the tank. He zooms in on the banded claws that renders them helpless. When Pedro is outside on his break, he stares up and sees a flock of birds flying across an empty gray sky. The immigrants in this kitchen are beholden to a not-so-benevolent restaurant owner. He promises them citizenship papers but never delivers. La cocina paints a portrait of an America that’s happy to ignore the plights of the tired, the poor and the huddled masses.
‘La cocina’ is available for streaming on Paramount+ and Apple TV.
