“Soul Kitchen”? Who, what, where, when, why? Because Turkish/German filmmaker Fatih Akin is quickly becoming one of the fastest rising international auteurs out there and at the age of 36, is already amassing an excellent body of work.
His nihilistic love story “Head On” was wonderfully electrically-charged and last year’s penetrating and powerful Kieslowski-esque chance and fate drama, “The Edge of Heaven,” was one of the year’s best.
Akin’s been around for years and made his first feature in 1998, but has only slowly been gaining worldwide recognition. “Soul Kitchen” is his 6th feature-length film, but the prolific director is always cranking out short films, documentaries, vignettes and even acts. This fall we’ll also see one of this shorts in the omnibus film, “New York I Love You.”
But with “Soul Kitchen” which stars notable German actors Moritz Bleibtreu (“Run Lola Run”), Birol Ünel (“Head On”) and Adam Bousdoukos, Akin takes a breather from his heavy dramas and goes for a lighter, ensemble-driven comedy about a restaurant owner.
A comedy of increasing errors, “Soul Kitchen,” has a diverting, winning premise — a bungled restaurant between brothers, friends and lovers — and starts out very auspiciously, but slowly devolves into silly, near cornball laughs and even a few odd moments of ill-conceived slapstick in between moments of real, poignant drama. Tonally challenged would be too harsh, but slightly confused in tenor is not far off.
Adam Bousdoukos plays Zinos, a well-meaning, but flaky and underachieving German Turk who can’t get his shit together. He make ends meet with his makeshift, dingy, seat-of-its-pants restaurant, built in a health-inspection code nightmare of a warehouse. The restaurateur also doubles as chef for what is essentially glorified bar food, but the hip music, house party hangout vibe and atmosphere keep the clientele happy and Zinos in basic business. But there must be zaniness in order to challenge the protagonist, no? And it rains down on him fairly predictably, you can pretty much time your watch to its beats. Trouble comes in many forms: an impatient girlfriend (Pheline Roggan) who, sick of Zino’s ineffective business sense, takes off to Hong Kong for six months, a random bad back accident that prompts the need for a real chef (weak plotting to be sure), a jailbird brother on a Euro-lenient work release program (an excellent Moritz Bleibtreu), prying health inspectors and an oily Aryan businessman (seemingly from the Hitler youth brigade) eyeing the land.
These surmounting obstacles, plus an impossibly difficult new chef who
only wants to cook frou frou food much to the chagrin to the culturally bereft laymen, add up in calculable fashion.
Yet, for the first 45 minutes, even hour, the picture is still largely enjoyable and amusing if a tiny bit of a delightful trifle. The bond between Zinos and his hooligan, hustler brother is heartfelt and genuine and the budding romance that springs between the semi-ex-con and the “Soul Kitchen,’ waitress (the beautiful Anna Bederke) is an enjoyable treat to watch. But the construction seems at odds with itself. The dramatic moments, perhaps where Akin feels most at home, feel and read very natural and affecting, the actors are solid in these zones though perhaps a little one dimensional at times (mostly the fussy chef played by “Head On” star Birol Ünel). Yet the comedy, especially in the second half, just disagrees with those who don’t want to see buffoonery. One particular madcap-y funeral scene is just egregious and sticks out like an eyesore in a film that is, otherwise, mostly capable up to that point. The last third especially goes far too loosey-goosey, playing, fast, loose, very foreseeable and worse, the sweet mood just curdles cloyingly.
Its strange to think this picture recently won the Grand Prix at the Venice Film Festival, but it does have a distinct crowd-pleasing element (and the Toronto crowd ate up every little soufflé-deep moment). Akin’s film does successfully straddle the line between pandering feelgood and celebratory joyfulness — at first anyhow. But as the picture progresses it becomes increasingly ingratiating and erratic in tone, practically fumbling into screwball comedy that just doesn’t work alongside the more solemn moments.
Its a bit of a shame considering the great cast of characters and the affable, likable initial pitch, not to mention the breath of fresh air a comedy brings to Akin’s sometimes soul-draining, existential dramas, but this simpatico picture veers off wildly, taking you out of the moments that do feel initially believable. There’s also an excellent, tastefully curated soul-funk soundtrack throughout, but enjoyable moments of Kool And the Gang, Quincy Jones and Curtis Mayfield, can’t salvage the uneven picture. Comedy is all about timing and calibration and perhaps a dramedy with less disorderly humor might have served this filmmaker a little better. [B-]
