Catching the Tribeca spirit with 'Soul Kitchen'

By Sarah Sluis

Yesterday I caught my first Tribeca Film Festival screening...ever. Despite my fears of hectic, standing-room-only crowds, I found the Village East Cinema frantic in a good way. Yes, there were people waiting

outside in the rain hiding beneath their umbrellas to get rush tickets before the show. But just as many people were crowded within the halls of the theatres, waiting for their shows, talking, writing, and making the place look like a temporary home.

Seeing a film with a festival audience is an experience well worth the crowds. It's always fun to hear people laugh unexpectedly, or the person next to me whispering in recognition when someone on screen spoke a line of Chinese (I think the Chinese words might have revealed that one of the characters was cheating on the other). A passionate, engaged audience can make a good film great.

I've been on a Hollywood-heavy diet lately, so it was refreshing to take in an independent, foreign-language film. FJI's executive editor Kevin Lally recommended Soul Kitchen (and wrote about it here), a German movie with an independent spirit. You could count all the ways it's not a typical Hollywood movie, which brings me to just that: all the ways it's different than say, restaurant rom-com No Reservations.

Parts of the movie seem like they're going to be predictable, but end up being played out in a much different way than you expect. When the manager of a Hamburg restaurant with terrible food teams up with a rock star chef, you assume they're going to turn the restaurant into a hot spot with rave reviews. Instead, the regulars hate the food, and it's only when a band starts practicing there and one of the fans requests something from the chalkboard menu that hasn't been taken down yet that the restaurant bit starts taking off. The whole movie just isn't that goal-oriented. The changes the restaurant undergoes are only part of the story, and the manager doesn't even want to turn his place into a super-trendy or four-star restaurant. That's surprising to audience members like me, who are so used to scripts revolving around accomplishments and failures.

Thanks to the inclusion of that great Hollywood trope, the eye lock between people who later fall in love, most of the romantic permutations can be guessed, but how they actually unfold is different than a typical romance. It's also fantastic to see a film cast with people that have a non-Hollywood look to them. Yes, some of the stars are beautiful, but all in unconventional ways. You get the feeling that if these people were actors in Hollywood, they would have much different haircuts/noses/figures/teeth.

Soul Kitchen, which has received a great deal of kudos over the festival, is perfectly suited to its environment, and will be at home when it opens this August through independent-minded IFC Films.