Those Scandinavians sure are reserved. The Norwegian dramedy Kitchen Stories is the tale of two men finding friendship and brotherhood, but aside from a shared moment of drunkenness, the pair barely exchange more than a few sentences. Yet, in the context of the cold Norse countryside, it all makes sense. The subtle cracks in the Scandinavian reserve are really all this quirky film gives you, but for the most part it's enough.
Actually it gives you one other thing: a gimmicky, odd and amusing premise. In the 1950s, Swedish scientists apparently have nothing better to do than design kitchens for maximum efficiency. After years of studying the kitchen habits of Swedish housewives, these scientists, instead of, say, curing cancer, move on to study the kitchen habits of single Norsemen. So a fleet of Swedes heads to a tiny Norwegian town, where the researchers live in little trailers outside their subjects' homes, observing their habits in total silence from chairs that look like they belong to lifeguards.
One such observer is Folke (Tomas Norstrom), whose subject, Isak (Joachim Calmeyer), is an ornery, old coot with reservations about participating in the project at all. Isak subverts the study by cooking in his bedroom and spying on Folke through the ceiling. But it's only a matter of time before that icy Scandinavian cool starts to melt, and the two are sharing conversation and even coffee. Enter officious project leader Malmberg (Reine Brynolfsson), who's more concerned with the integrity of the project than with the value of human interaction.
Director and co-writer Bent Hamer presents a quiet and slight story, with modest laughs at the expense of the silly study at the beginning, and modest rewards from the characters' interaction at the end. You never get the sense that you really know Folke and Isak, though, even if their friendship's development is completely natural. And Hamer's ending is a little too thematically convenient, sacrificing believability for a tidy resolution.
Some of the jokes about the differences between Swedes and Norwegians are bound to be lost on non-Scandinavians, and the film is too insubstantial to be anything more than an amusing diversion. But, like many European films, it offers a nicely nuanced portrayal of getting older, and that makes the diversion entirely welcome.