Daniel Kaluuya and Kibwe Tavares’ directorial debut, streaming on Netflix, is emotional and foreboding at the same time; it’s compelling but also incomplete
There exists a facility named ‘Life After Life’ in London of the not-so-distant future. Here, families too poor to afford a proper funeral for their loved ones get to turn them into trees for planting. The fresh plants are stored in the facility for a brief period so that their families can ‘visit’ them. This is the mourning period, says the facility’s employee Izi (Kane Robinson) to one of his customers, in one of his many earnest attempts to score some commission.
Izi is young and lonely but he needs that extra cash to get out of the Kitchen, a vast ghetto of illegal occupants that he describes as a sh*thole. He currently has his eyes set on the slick new apartment named Buena Vida, though, which stands tall in the finer and far less dense part of London. Izi is almost there.
In Daniel Kaluuya and Kibwe Tavares’ latest film The Kitchen, currently streaming on Netflix, hope is scarce and grief is suppressed. Population is on the rise in this world and economic disparity is rampant more than ever, causing the less privileged to take shelter in declining housing estates. The government, on the other hand, is evacuating these settlements with force and brutality and the Kitchen is already on its radar; in fact, some of the wings or sections of this estate, where one race is overwhelmingly large in number, have already been shut down.
A silence that speaks volumes
The Kitchen, however, is a strong-willed bunch where people clank their utensils to alert fellow dwellers every time there’s a police raid. There’s a radio DJ, who goes by the name Lord Kitchener (Ian Wright), who keeps everyone’s spirits up with his eclectic record collection and occasional buckle-up speeches. There’s a skating rink, a market, an underground nightclub, bars, a place where kids get together to pull off stunts on their bikes and so much more that if you really wanted to, you could call this place your home.
But Izi, still, wants nothing of it. In his heart, he has emotionally checked out from the Kitchen a long time ago and is only keen at the moment to look after himself. So, what will he do when teenage Benji (Jedaiah Bannerman), who recently lost his mother and believes his estranged father lives in the Kitchen, enters his life?
It is here, at this emotional crutch moment, that Daniel Kaluuya and Kenji score the highest as directors. Their world-building is vivid and immersive but the actual charm lies in just how effortlessly they immerse us into the heart of the drama. Everything else you see around you is pure visual commentary and very important to the experience, yes, but they exemplify it all through the help of a tender story of bonding and readjusting priorities. And the manner in which the director duo gets it done, without ever drawing too much attention to their manoeuvres, is what makes the film tick. The Kitchen is a film that’s imbued with a kind of silence that speaks volumes against the blaring chaos of its world.
Echoes of the futuristic hellhole
Izi cannot help but be protective towards Benji and there’s something about Izi that Benji is really fond of. Maybe Benji sees an idol in Izi and he, in turn, sees himself in Benji. When Benji is spotted initially in bad company in the estate, Izi reluctantly prohibits him from hanging with those people. Reluctance is the operative word here and The Kitchen, as a film, works well when it digs deep into Izi’s soul about what stops him from fully committing himself. It asks these interesting questions of him from up close, often pointing the camera not more than an or two away from his face so that we spot something — a small giveaway of any kind — and get to know this guy a little more.
One might find the setting of The Kitchen to have echoes of the futuristic hellhole that Alfonso Cuarón built in his seminal Children of Men (2006). The fact that both stories are set in London brings them closer and they dovetail even more prominently because of the identical denseness and a remarkable lack of optimism in the air in both worlds. Except the new film isn’t close to being as ambitious as Cuarón’s masterpiece.
The Kitchen is a film that’s imbued with a kind of silence that speaks volumes against the blaring chaos of its world.
Instead, The Kitchen somehow manages to keep things simple and somehow, simultaneously on the edge. One of the strongest merits of the film is its visual language — using the camera (Wyatt Garfield is the cinematographer) as though it is one of the community’s occupants, the narrative traces the world with a feather-light touch and allows us to soak up its complete essence. From the drabness of the interiors of the homes to the stark vibrancy of the clothing under which the Kitchen’s people hide their pain, there’s a kind of poetry about the way the film functions. And, interestingly, it also falters with this approach because, in an attempt to leave most things unsaid, it ends up being a tad incomplete.
Loose ends
How? The narrative of The Kitchen is mostly busy navigating two main aspects — one, of course, is the dynamic between Izi and Benji and the other is the world itself. In a way, Izi and Benji’s relationship is perhaps meant to embody the spirit of the world — the solidarity, a sense of loss, etc. but the script (written by Kaluuya and Joe Murtagh) doesn’t fully succeed in carrying out the balancing act. When one aspect works, the other doesn’t and as a result, The Kitchen never fully delves into anything.
Who is Izi really and why does he hate the Kitchen so much? What exactly is the make-up of this dystopian world and why do we know so little about the personal lives of its people? How exactly is this world gentrified? Is this meant to be just a premonition or is it telling us that dystopia is already here? Questions like these and a few more strike us as the title credits roll.
Could poverty and disorder have been more powerfully captured? Definitely yes, and Cuarón, again, proves with his 2006 film just how evocative it can be when the vision is clear. I wish I got to know a little more about Lord Kitchener and how he came to assume the position. I wish I could understand how one comes to live in a place like the Kitchen and how economic deprivation works in this setting. I wish there were more personal stories to cling on to. Still, The Kitchen is worth your time because it makes a valiant attempt to talk to us about something instead of simply telling us. And how many films bother taking that route?
