Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios has had a record-breaking run at the Berlin Film Festival since 2013, when his film Guerous It won the award for Best First Film. Five years later, he returned with his second film, the museum heist thriller museum, It deservedly won the Silver Bear Award for Best Screenplay. His third, Cop movieThe film, which plays with the traditional documentary form by using actors, won Best Documentary at Mexico’s Golden Ariel Awards.
Ruizpalacios belongs to the same league as other prominent current Mexican directors Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón and especially Alejandro González Iñárritu, whose cinematic style seems closest to what Ruizpalacios was doing. His last trip to Berlin la cocina, Enhances the exciting talent of this unique director who made his first film using both Spanish and English. It features American star Rooney Mara as well as a stunning, uninhibited, star-shooting turn from Raul Briones, who worked with Ruizpalacios on Cop movie He won an Ariel Award for Supporting Actor. And here he goes bankrupt.
Ruizpalacios based his screenplay loosely on Arnold Wesker’s 1957 play and the 1961 British film. the kitchen, Both focused on restaurant employees spending a typical morning at work. He maintains the setting and theme but infuses more of his own background working in a London restaurant (the time he first saw the play) and incorporating the American dream of immigrants looking for a better life, finding work in a touristy New York City restaurant. Grill because they don’t need leaves and can get good tips. But as far as food is concerned, this is not the case Babette’s Day or Taste of things. The food served looks bad, and it clearly is, and the cuisine here is mostly like a melting pot of immigrants, largely, their stories and interactions with each other and with their bosses and the task of just trying to make a living in the environment of a country that is not their own.
To put it mildly, La cocina Looks like The bear On steroids, it’s a black-and-white pressure cooker that leads to a ferocious and explosive finale. In the divisions between staff and management, and the mix of American and non-American customers, it’s not just to show what The Grill is all about It’s like a normal day but also the world itself. With its focus on these immigrants and their plight, the film becomes a powerful and timely portrait of where we are today — and yet, it is a far cry from another great film that focused on similar dreams, Elia Kazan’s 1963 film. America America.
As it opens, we see mysterious black-and-white images of the aftermath of the Statue of Liberty in New York City. We meet Estela (Ana Diaz), a young woman coming to the United States with only the name of a relative, Pedro (Bryoni), who works in a large restaurant and can help her get a job, even though she has no papers or references. Her interview with manager Eduardo Olmos was difficult, but she got the job. Standards aren’t exactly high at this place.
She shows him the photographic evidence she has of their family ties and his younger days, and Estela also reaches out to Pedro. However, the focus does not remain on her, and the scenario shifts to the larger-than-life social dreamer Pedro and others, most notably the American waitress Julia (Mara), whom Estela meets in the locker room and immediately notices that she is pregnant. . Already a mother, Julia does not want to keep the child and is at odds with the father, Pedro, who loves her even as she resists commitment. Their relationship becomes the main relationship at play here, a complex sexual relationship, further complicated when Julia seeks an abortion.
The conflict also comes to light with the loss of over $800 and suspicions about the employee who may have stolen it, as well as Pedro’s relationships with the intense (to say the least) chef (Lee R. Sellars), who will play a major role in this matter. It all becomes too much for Pedro. The pressure of the job becomes apparent through a stunningly choreographed scene where we see the frenetic pace of what happens at rush hour in this restaurant. What appears to be a 12+ minute tracking shot in and out of all areas while the staff is in overdrive, is a dazzling display of the talents of director of photography Juan Pablo Ramírez, who shoots in vibrant black and white but puts it all on the line in this Sequence. Followed by a quieter moment in the back street as Pedro and some other workers talk about their hopes and dreams of coming to the United States for a better life, particularly a poignant monologue by a black employee (Foster Hotel is great).
For Mara, this role is a nice change of pace, and she is excellent, as is the entire cast that also includes Oded Fehr as Rasheed, the big boss, who promises to help Pedro go legal.
La cocina It is a journey and an unforgettable and exciting look inside not only a restaurant kitchen, but also into the complex lives of the unseen people who provide its heartbeat. It has its world premiere tonight in competition at the Berlin Film Festival and is looking for US distribution.
Title: La cocina
festival: Berlin (Berlinale private concert)
Director and screenwriter: Alonso Ruizpalacios
ejaculate: Raul Briones, Rooney Mara, Ana Diaz, Motel Foster, Oded Fehr, Eduardo Olmos, Laura Gomez
Running time: 2 hours and 19 minutes
Sales agent: Season 5 and WME (North America); Hanoi Films (International)