'Kitchen Stories'
Domestic bliss?

FORGING A PATH on the post-World World II road to maximum peace-front efficiency, Sweden's Home Research Institute is conducting studies in domestic habit – the better to streamline every manse into a well-oiled engine for meal production and added quality leisure time. Having already "done" the average housewife, the HRI's new focus is the single male. One group of "observers" is dispatched to rural Norway. Pen and clipboard dutifully in hand, perched owl-like atop what looks like a giant baby's ceiling-scraping high chair, Folke (Tomas Norström) must spend hours each day recording the scullery movements of Isak (Joachim Calmeyer) in his frigid farmhouse. But Isak isn't the most cooperative "volunteer" – he thought he was getting a horse for his trouble, but it turned out to be a wooden-toy one. Since Folke isn't supposed to communicate with the "subject," their nonrelationship is as awkward as possible at first. But gradually the two middle-aged men breach officialdom's prescribed barriers, finding they enjoy one another's company very much. This gets Folke into some trouble with his superiors, while also spurring the jealousy of Isak's hitherto sole friend, Grant (Bjorn Floberg). No, Kitchen Stories isn't a coming-out tale. Indeed, it's questionable whether some of these characters ever have, or will have, sex with anybody save Mr. Hand. Rather, this third feature from Bent Hamer is another writ-small portrait of gently funny, well-observed, moderately eccentric humanity whose charm creeps up on you slowly but surely. Not quite as pleasingly absurdist as his debut, Egg, or finally as probing as one would like, Stories nonetheless provides a kind of low-key satisfaction that too seldom gets imported (or brewed domestically) these days. (Dennis Harvey)