The appliance of science
KITCHEN STORIES (DVD)
Director: Bent Hamer
Cert: PG
Running time: 97 minutes
In post-war Sweden, research showed that every year an average housewife walked the distance between Stockholm and Congo while preparing her family meals in her kitchen. What, therefore, would be the most efficient way to arrange a kitchen in order to minimise the journey?
Then, to enhance the project, the Home Research Institute sent out 18 observers to a rural district of Norway to map out the kitchen routines of single men. The researchers are on 24-hour call, living next to their designated house in little caravans of their own, and, while observing, sit in special strategically placed chairs of great height in each kitchen. Under no circumstances are the researchers to be spoken to or included in the kitchen activities.
Here are all the ingredients for a gentle and poignant comedy. Though the dialogue is in Swedish with subtitles, much of the action is silent and would be humorous in any language.
Relational by nature
It has a message about the conflict between the supposed detached objectivity of scientific method and the fact that people can’t help being relational. It explores friendship and, therefore, true humanity. Perhaps the scientific description of homo sapiens misses the point of who we really are. This is a film from 2004 which is still available via LoveFilm and on DVD.
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What would you think if you received a letter from your church leaders that read like this? ‘Are church …