Remaining neutral in World War II, socialist Sweden emerges unscathed, an industrial power with plenty to offer mankind—they start by reinventing the kitchen. In the notoriously Scandinavian obsession with design and function that follows, the fictional Swedish Home Research Institute turns cooking into an exact science.
Kitchen Stories, the fifth film of Norwegian director Bent Hamer, delves into Nordic domestic science studies, with surprisingly palatable results. After careful field research tracking the movements of Swedish housewives in the kitchen, the scientists design a new layout that would reduce by thousands of miles the annual distance walked in the cooking area. In 1944, the institute hopes to do the same for bachelors, heading to Southern Norway where, apparently, there is no dearth in their supply.
The film follows Swedish researcher Folke Nilsson into the rural farmhouse of the aged Isak Bjorvik, presenting the audience with a twist on the Stockholm syndrome, in which the observer begins to identify with the observed. Alone together in the gray Nordic winter, two men carve out a simple friendship from this unusual situation.
Folke drives with the other researchers from Sweden to Landstad, Norway, towing a camper that will serve as his home for the next few months. The institute has provided an observation chair, resembling a tennis umpire’s but for its handy desk arm, which Folke sets up in the corner of Isak’s kitchen. The two men are officially prohibited from interacting, leaving Folke silently perched in the chair to diagram and chart Isak the farmer’s movements.
Though he volunteered for the study, Isak proves a reluctant guinea pig, preferring to use his kitchen to let laundry dry, drink homemade vodka and give haircuts to burly, unwashed neighbors. He cooks secretly in his bedroom.
Partially obscured behind the dripping long johns and assorted linens draped around the green and white proto-IKEA kitchen, Grant, a neighbor asks Folke “Have you observed Isak today?” The awkward Folke, portrayed convincingly by Tomas Norstrom, shows up for work each day in a suit and tie, while Isak prefers his usual farm wear.
Uncomfortable under Folke’s ever-watchful eyes, Isak drills a hole in his closet so that he can observe Folke in the kitchen below, the only room where the scientist is allowed to go. Joachim Calmeyer’s portrayal of this lonely idiosyncratic farmer is compelling and endearing. Often, Isak is intentionally irritating, turning on the kitchen tap simply to let it drip, and then leaving the room. Sitting at the kitchen table munching loudly on dark chocolate bar, Isak notices Folke taking notes, so he turns off the light and continues to snack. Comically well-prepared, Folke dons a headlamp and keeps watching.
Later that evening, Folke consoles himself with his own dark chocolate bars, binging alone in his camper. When he receives a package from his aunt, a homesick Folke gorges himself on cheese, various Swedish sausages and pickled Baltic herring. Eating to the point of sickness, the next day Folke shares these Swedish staples with Isak in a gesture of friendship. Isak marvels at the funny-sounding Swedish words on the box, and the men find in each other’s presence a balm for their loneliness.
In an effort to relate to each other, the two men bond over anecdotes of Scandinavian hero and famed botanist Carolus Linnaeus, to whom Folke claims to be distantly related. The contrast between Folke’s Swedish efficiency and Isak’s unwashed Norwegian eccentricities is played out on a larger scale, with jokes about the differences between the countries persistenting throughout the film. “Next week I will have to take a bath,” Isak warns. Thoughtfully steeped in the quirks of rural Scandinavian living, Kitchen Stories gently derides the Swedes’ vaguely socialist tendency to reduce everything to a science.
Though it may drag at times, the spare dialogue and Hamer’s imagery make a film that succeeds in the details. The vaguely melancholy mood of the film fades with the happiness of a new friendship. In this world of man-powered sleds and Taylorist kitchenry, we are afforded a rare but valuable look into the lives and friendships of eccentric Scandinavian bachelors.
Kitchen Stories is showing at E Street Cinema, 555 11th Street, N.W (entrance on E St. between 10th and 11th Streets).
