This movie, which seems to have fallen under the radar for many people, is brilliant. It represents the vision and work of one man, Daniel Kaluuya (readers may have seen him in the science fiction thriller, Get Out) . Kaluuya gets writing credit, directing credit and producer credit. Although he is a talented actor, he does not appear in The Kitchen.
The movie has been described as dystopian science fiction. I would describe it as imaginative realism. Just about everything in the movie is possible in today's technology, and the dystopian aspect of it is the dark side of what is real life for many people now.
Calais Refugee Camp, France
Credit: Michal Bělka. CC 4.0 Attribution Share Alike International license. The camp was demolished and its residents forcibly evicted in a series of 'raids', 2015-2017
The setting of the film is a social housing project--an 'estate'--in the UK. This project is a self-contained city, and everybody who lives there is a squatter. The other 'estates' around the city have been forcibly closed.
There are omnipresent police drones in the film. That is not a far cry from what we have today. Police drones are a common enforcement tool. According to the website Police1, over 1400 U.S. police agencies use drones to surveil us, and to enforce the law. And the trend is to increase the use of drones.
There was a time when drones zipping by were startling in a movie and added to the sense of paranoia. No more. Cameras, drones, basically universal surveillance are a way of life now. Even our TVs, iPads and phones can surveil us.
In the movie, there are instant messages flashing on the screen in front of the protagonist as he shaves. This is not very different from Alexa, or the targeted messages that pop up constantly on our devices, messages that reveal we have been tracked and followed and the sources know exactly what we want and what we do.
The film is gritty and dark, but, once again, not far from the reality many people live today.
The dynamic of The Kitchen is familiar. There is tension between rich and poor. This dynamic has been explored before in films. Many of these have been even more extremely dystopian than The Kitchen. For example, in Paradise the rich buy years of life, and thus drain youth, from the poor. And, in The Hunt, rich people kidnap poor people in order to set up hunting parties. The poor are released into what is essentially a hunting pen and are shot as they try to escape.
This rich vs poor dynamic in a dystopian setting is almost a genre. I believe The Kitchen is one of the best in this mold.
In the movie, the poor who live in the Kitchen refuse to move. Announcements from a government aerial source are broadcast into the project. Residents are told they are on private property and they must vacate. Repeated government raids forcibly remove people and demolish their property. A revolutionary force within the community mounts resistance to the government's expulsions.
East Village, Social Housing Complex, London, 2015
Photographer: Paul Watt p.watt@bbk.ac.uk Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. A 2017 report on social housing in East London stated: "descriptions of ill health and impairment were implicated in constructions of housing need; participants directly attributed a range of health complaints to their housing predicaments, including stress, depression, cancer scares, panic attacks and loss of sleep."
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While this blog summary may give the impression that the film is exclusively social commentary, that impression would be wrong. This is a human story, a story about people. In order to drive that point home, one man, Izi, becomes the focus.
Izi yearns to move out of the Kitchen and live in a luxury apartment. He has a picture of this luxury apartment and is saving his money for that one goal.
The writing for the film is excellent and shows mastery of story craft. A parallel is created between Izi's growth as a character and the destiny of the Kitchen. One character in the film helps to delineate this message: Lord Kitchener. This character expresses the spirit of the Kitchen. His role is a bit like that of a Greek chorus. He traces the events, motivation and destiny of the Kitchen's community.
Lord Kitchener lives atop the community. He's got an old fashioned record player and vinyl records. He sends his messages and music throughout the compound. He alerts the residents of the Kitchen when a police raid is imminent.
Lord Kitchener speaks the gospel of the place. His gospel is clear: they (the government/police) can't get 'we'; they can only get we if we become I. This principal is key to Izi's growth as a character.
At the beginning of the film Izi is selfish. He has no sense of community or obligation to others. When water is turned off in the building he goes to the only shower available in the building. He gets there first and uses water liberally while long lines form outside. When he meets his young son for the first time, he rejects the boy, although the child was recently orphaned.
At this point in the film, Izi represents Lord Kitchener's 'I'. He has no use for 'we'. It is his challenge in the film to go from 'I' to 'we'. As we watch repeated government raids of the community and we follow Izi's development, we are essentially wondering if 'we' will win out for both the community, and Izi.
Besides Izi and Lord Kitchener, there are other memorable characters in the film. Benji, Izi's son, is foremost among these. Often, for me, child actors are a distraction, necessary props that do their business crudely. However, when Benji is on the screen, he holds his own. He goes toe-to-toe with seasoned adult actors and turns in a memorable, moving performance.
How does this movie end? That I can't tell you. This is really one that must be watched. I do recommend it highly.
A word here about the actors:
I think the authenticity of the film is enforced by the fact that the three important actors I've discussed in this blog came to acting indirectly. For two of them, Benji and Lord Kitchener, The Kitchen was the first movie in which they acted.
- Izi :
Played by Kane Robertson, otherwise known as Kano. Kano is a rapper and musician. He is a well known performer of Grime, which is a music that is a product of London's urban communities. Kano's evolution into acting is fascinating, because this man is a great actor. The first time I saw him was in Top Boy, which is a Netflix series that is set in a fictional London estate.
Here is a sample of Kano performing Grime:
In The Kitchen, Kano plays a man who sells funerals to the poor. This is a futuristic idea of a funeral. People are persuaded to have their loved ones turned into trees after cremation, rather than having a burial in a burial plot (presumably, land for cemeteries is becoming scarce). In one of the opening scenes of the film the character Kano plays, Izi, talks an elderly man into being cremated and having his ashes nourish a tree. Izi makes clear that in persuading the man, there is a commission to be made. This is another instance of Izi being 'I'...he is saving up for that luxury apartment.
- Benji :
Benji is played by Jedaiah Bannerman, who was 12 when he auditioned for the part and 14 when he acted in it. He turned up for an audition, although he had never done a bit of acting in his life. Throughout the film, the writer/director listened to feedback from the boy. If Jedaiah thought a line didn't sound right for a 14-year-old, then the line was changed. (Info derived from an article in Daily Mail).
- Lord Kitchener :
A former footballer, Ian Wright, fills this role. Before being cast in The Kitchen, Wright had only appeared in media as himself. The authenticity of his performance is perhaps enhanced by experience. At one point in his life he was extremely poor. He was imprisoned briefly because he could not pay license fees for his car. (Information derived from Wikipedia).
Film Data: (From Wikipedia):
Writing: Daniel Kaluuya, Joe Murtagh, Amy Baty
Directing: Daniel Kaluuya, Kibwe Tavares
Producing: Daniel Emmerson, Daniel Kaluuya
Run Time: 107 Minutes
I watched the movie on Netflix. I don't know where else it might be available.
I tried to find budget/profit stats but was unsuccessful.