Soul Kitchen

Filled with boisterous good spirits, Fatih Akin’s Soul Kitchen tells of a young Greek-German man’s attempts to make a success of a funky restaurant despite a series of mishaps.The film won the Special Jury Prize at the 2009 Venice International Film Festival. It’s a delightful change of pace for director and co-writer Akin, whose Head On and The Edge Of Heaven dealt with far more serious stuff.

Co-writer Adam Bousdoukos plays energetic and likeable opportunist Zinos Kazantsakis, who runs a popular restaurant called Soul Kitchen in a neglected area of Hamburg. He prepares stodgy fare such as frozen pizza, hamburgers, and macaroni and cheese; the service is abrupt and the music is loud but the customers are happy.

But then a tax collector takes away his sound system in lieu of back taxes, his girlfriend Nadine (Pheline Roggan) jets off to a new job in China, his no-account brother Illias (Moritz Bleibtrau) gets out of prison, and his new chef turns out to be a culinary purist with anger-management issues.

On top of that, Zinos throws his back out while renovating his kitchen and a estate speculator, Neumann (Wotan Wilke Mohring), starts hounding him to sell the property so he can flatten it for development.

The film follows Zinos in his attempts to save his restaurant, solve his back pain, win back his girlfriend and keep his brother out of jail. It’s all done with flair and a great deal of fun. The personable Bousdoukos actually owned a Hamburg restaurant for several years and he is right at home in the lead role. In a fine ensemble with many well-drawn smaller characters, Bleibtreu (Run Lola Run) as the hapless brother, Ünel (Head On) as the fussy chef and Anna Bederke, as a waitress, all stand out.

With brisk pacing, sharp ideas and eclectic music, Akin and cinematographer Rainer Klausmann make Soul Kitchen a place for audiences to savour.”

– Ray Bennett, Reuters