La Cocina 2024 WEB-DL.BluRay Torrent

39/42

Our LoveWritten by Al HazanPerformed by The Starr Sisters

Story

In the heart of a bustling Times Square kitchen, dreams and desperation collide as the staff each chase the elusive American dream.. ‘La Cocina’ (2024), the bold and unusual film by Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios, immediately reminded me of Charlie Chaplin's 'Modern Times'. Both films have one memorable scene that visually and symbolically represents everything that is wrong with the dehumanization of work. As a whole, both films present scathing and fearless critiques of abhorrent aspects of the capitalist system, of course in different centuries and at different stages. ‘La Cocina’ combines this topic with that of illegal immigration in America today.

We never enter the front door, though

Movies about immigration in America have a tradition, you could say they represent a separate genre. What is special about Ruizpalacios' film is that the point of view is that of immigrants. The director, most of the producers, the technical crew, the actors and the heroes of the film are mostly non-American. The director is also the author of the screenplay, adapted to the realities of America and today from a play (which also became a film script) by the English playwright Arnold Arnold Wesker.The story takes place in a restaurant called 'The Grill’ in the center of Manhattan, somewhere near Times Square. From the first scene, we are directed to the back entrance, and we will only see the restaurant itself, with its local or tourist customers, twice in the movie.

Pedro has a relationship with the waitress Julia, who is pregnant

The rest of the story takes place in the kitchen where dozens of dishes are prepared at a hellish pace for the hundreds of customers, or in the side streets or inner courtyards where the huge garbage bags permanently generated by the junk machine are stored. Estela, a (probably illegal) immigrant, who doesn’t speak one word of English, is hired to work in the kitchen alongside Pedro, also an illegal immigrant, who has already been in the place for several years. The woman wants to terminate the pregnancy, the man – who maybe loves her or maybe just wants to sort out his legal situation somehow – would like her to keep the baby. When $832 goes missing from one of the cashier machines, the entire staff, composed mostly of immigrants, comes under suspicion. The temperature is rising in the inferno that is already the restaurant kitchen.'La Cocina' is not an easy film to watch.

The combination of the neo-realism of the attitude and the diversity of the cinematic means works very well

It is quite long and has moments when the story drags and the dialogues suffer from an excess of rhetoric and repetitions that add nothing. Fortunately, there are many other excellent scenes, inspired directorial decisions, and something cinematically interesting happening on screen all the time. Perhaps fearing theatricality, the director Alonso Ruizpalacios seems to constantly remind us that we are watching a production of the art of film. The cinematography uses black and white, with rare spots of color at key moments and towards the end – a procedure if not invented, then made famous by Steven Spielberg in 'Schindler's List'). The scene at the core of the film, which lasts about 15-20 minutes, is filmed in one long shot and manages to convey the infernal dynamics of the activity in the restaurant’s kitchen.

We are not in a temple of gastronomy but in a rather expensive junk food factory

Unlike many other films whose stories take place in the kitchen, in 'La Cocina' the preparation of food is not (with one exception) appetizing, nor did the screenwriter and director really care. The atmosphere of confusion that is transmitted to the viewers is what the heroes of the film feel as immigrants faced with the American realities, with hellish working conditions, with language barriers and mentalities.