Kitchen Stories
Kitchen Stories (Norwegian: Salmer fra Kjøkkenet) is a 2003 Norwegian film by Bent Hamer.
Plot
Swedish efficiency researchers come to Norway for a study of Norwegian men, to optimize their use of their kitchen. Folke Nilsson (Tomas Norström) is assigned to study the habits of Isak Bjørvik (Joachim Calmeyer). By the rules of the research institute, Folke has to sit on an umpire's chair in Isak's kitchen and observe him from there, but never talk to him. Isak stops using his kitchen and observes Folke through a hole in the ceiling instead. However, the two lonely men slowly overcome the initial post-war Norwegian-Swede distrust and become friends.
Inspiration
Bent Hamer was amused after perusing post-war research books on the efficiency of the Swedish housewife, and pondered on the idea of research being done on men. This led to him making the film Kitchen Stories.
Cast
Kitchen (novel)
Kitchen （キッチン）is a novel written by Japanese author Banana Yoshimoto (吉本ばなな）in 1988 and translated into English in 1993 by Megan Backus.
Although one may notice a certain Western influence in Yoshimoto's style, Kitchen is still critically recognized as an example of contemporary Japanese literature; The Independent, The Times and The New Yorker have all reviewed the novel favorably.
Most editions also include a novella entitled Moonlight Shadow, which is also a tragedy dealing with loss and love.
There have been two films made of the story, a Japanese TV movie in 1989 and a more widely released version produced in Hong Kong by Yim Ho in 1997.
Plot
In Kitchen, a young Japanese woman named Mikage Sakurai struggles to overcome the death of her grandmother. She gradually grows close to one of her grandmother's friends, Yuichi, from a flower shop and ends up staying with him and his transgender mother, Eriko.
From Mikage's love of kitchens to her job as a culinary teacher's assistant to the multiple scenes in which food is merely present, Kitchen is a short window into the life of a young Japanese woman and her discoveries about food and love amongst a background of tragedy.
