Steel Yourself for a Screening of ‘La Cocina’, Dec. 6-19

Still from *La Cocina* courtesy of Photon Films

This time of year, big screens tend to be dominated by corny, big-budget and family-friendly movies – so if, like us, you can live without another holiday or superhero flick, then you’ve probably written off a trip to the cinema until after the NYE glitter settles…But wait! Not so fast! It’s recently come to our attention that there is a new, very not-G-rated, restaurant-related film coming to the VIFF Centre beginning this Friday. It’s called La Cocina.

Starring Rooney Mara and Raúl Briones, for La Cocina, Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios uses the 1957 play The Kitchen, by Arnold Wesker, as his jump-off point, to depict one day in the busy BOH of a modern day diner located in Times Square, New York, in nostalgic black-and-white film. Audiences can expect all the stereotypical restaurant politics – territoriality, hierarchy and camaraderie, as well as casual racism, classism, homophobia and misogyny – plus equipment breakdowns, emotional meltdowns, wipe-outs, theft, romance, sex, drugs, fighting, cigarettes galore, LOTS of swearing (in different languages) and shouting – oh, and cooking too, obviously. In a nutshell: high tension and gritty as f*ck – kinda like real life.

Although occasionally broken up with scenes outside of the kitchen chaos (what’s a proper restaurant flick without a staff meal and smoke break, right?), if episodes of The Bear (a popular benchmark among reviewers, so far) make you hyperventilate or just plain irate, and/or you can’t handle the stress of watching the two-minute-long trailer for La Cocina below, then you should probably sit this 139-minute-long film out. Alternatively, if you’re a film- and food-lover who gets off (at least a wee bit) by seeing the restaurant industry dramatized and captured on film – and have no mistake, the film is gorgeous and well-acted, and the camera work is impressive – then take note that VIFF Centre currently has five screenings of La Cocina lined up for December: on the 6th, 15th, 16th, 17th and 19th (times vary by day). Tickets and more details can be found here.