La Cocina
Talented Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios is back with an intense drama concerned with the dream of immigration and the exploitative nature of capitalism, set within the pressure-cooker environment of a New York restaurant
If you’ve ever overstated on a CV your ability to thrive in a “fast-paced, demanding environment”, the Times Square restaurant in which La Cocina takes place is the workplace that would make you swallow your words humbly.
Alonso Ruizpalacios’s ambitious adaptation of Arnold Wesker's 1957 play about a turbulent kitchen during a frenetic service is confronting, distressing and poignant. The plot is deliciously unfixed as we follow a large, harried staff of immigrant workers trying to get through a shift. We see the internecine feuds of line cooks whose personal incompatibility upends professional flow; jobsworth middle management who cast aspersions; and imperial big bosses who survey with a gimlet eye (and with false promises that render visa opportunities for low-income Latin American workers a chimera). The soda draft machine creating a Genesis-like flood is only half of the chaos.
Dynamics among workers range from that of romantic tension to the familiar flow of familial jest; from apathetic coexistence to explosive intolerance. Racial slurs are hurled and overbearing machismo is rampant. Everyone has their own idea of righteousness and everyone is without power. Raúl Briones, as the intractable cook Pedro, is the film’s heart and storm centre. In his complex performance he is charming and irascible, imposing and self-destructive. Burning with resentment that coagulates, he delivers the most electrifying, runaway train finale of recent film memory.
La Cocina moves you with its vivid human portraits of yearning while in an unforgiving workplace, lamenting why reality is so careless with people's dreams.
Released 28 Mar by Picturehouse; certificate 15