What an odd little picture this is. Set in Norway of the 1950s, the gently thoughtful 'Kitchen Stories' follows a tester Folke (Norstorm) whose job it is to make the work area of the house as perfectly designed as possible. That search for the perfect kitchen leads him to test Isak (Joachim Calmyer), a resolutely old fashioned farmer who is utterly set in his ways in rural Norway. (I'm not making this up, trust me.) At first, Isak stubbornly refuses to allow the calculating Folke into his house. When he does eventually cede, the tester monitors his movements all day, leading Isak to take ever more ridiculous steps in his bid to maintain some mystery.
Despite the odd premise, Kitchen Stories is a hearty and humane story, anchored in two fine central performances from Calmyer and Norstorm. The nature of the film - frequent, lengthy silences are plentiful - may not sound like comedic gold, but the sheer verve of the cast and the slow burn humour of the material means that there's a relentless wry intelligence at the heart of this picture.
