In Netflix’s new dystopian action drama, there are no aliens or sentient killing machines threatening ordinary people’s lives kitchen Directed by co-directors Daniel Kaluuya and Kibwe Tavares. But the film’s compelling story of future monsters and how the most vulnerable members of society must fight them feels all too real, like a reminder of how systemic poverty can create its own dystopia.
The story takes place in a near-future London, where fluorescent holographic advertisements dance on signs and police drones equipped with cameras float silently high in the sky. kitchen is a chronicle of what happened in the immediate vicinity of its title. After years of public housing across the UK being bought up by private companies and converted into expensive luxury apartments for the wealthy, The Kitchen – a towering, dilapidated block of flats long-scheduled for demolition – is the only place in London where people like Isaac live . (Rapper Kane “Kano” Robinson) can really afford to live.
Kitchen poverty is so great that residents never know if their electricity and water will be cut off by the city. But it remains a bustling commercial center, with vendors hawking food on streets filled with children playing and old men resting outside barbershops. There’s always a tense atmosphere here as Kitchener residents prepare for another violent police raid in the city aimed at evicting them from their homes.
But the air in the kitchen is also constantly filled with the sound of music playing from Lord Kitchener’s (Ian Wright) pirate radio station and his calls for nearby predominantly black and brown communities to assert their right to exist. idea. In a place where their families have survived for decades.
A native of Kitchener, Isaac and his friend Jess (Demi Ladipo) work for a company that provides compost for the dead whose families cannot afford a traditional funeral. Isaac knew this community was more than just a neighborhood filled with squatters. Condemned buildings. But after witnessing a kitchen being razed to the ground and its residents brutalized by police in riot gear, all Isaac wants is the chance to get out and move into the kind of high-rise where he can combine himself with The world and emotions are closed off. .
kitchen It’s easy to recognize the parallels between its vision of a future of housing inequality and our reality today, where renters and potential homebuyers around the world are increasingly being squeezed out Limited and competitive real estate market.But the film’s script, written by Kaluuya and co-writers Rob Hayes and Joe Murtaugh, focuses on young Londoners coping with the complexities of near-homelessness, which makes kitchen It reads like a scathing reflection on the long-term damaging effects of Britain’s Margaret Thatcher-era Right to Buy policy.
kitchen Its namesake building is a narrow, Kowloon-like mosaic of barely habitable spaces filled with outdated technology that contrasts with the spacious neighborhood nearby, where gleaming self-driving cars park next to luxury boutiques. At any given time, Kitcheners like Isaac and Stample (Hope Ikpoku Jr.), the leaders of a motorcycle gang whose robberies provide the only food for Kitcheners Source – Always surrounded by reminders of the basic comforts they were deprived of.
But in many ways kitchen Depicting how society systematically dehumanizes the poor, few are as good as its depiction of Isaac going to work every day and persuading his neighbors to buy into a service they all believe is designed to erase them from public consciousness. So profound. This erasure is part of the story of young orphan Benji (Jedaya Bannerman) who is horrified to see his mother’s body turned into tree fertilizer in the “afterlife” and how he first meets Isaac. place. What really frightens Isaac, however, is his unshakable feeling that Benjy’s mother’s fate is inevitable simply by virtue of coming from the kitchen, and allows him to see what Benjy will face if he doesn’t escape the kitchen himself.
What if Isaac and Benji came into each other’s lives? kitchen Becomes a coming-of-age story and a reflection on the power of collective action and building family. Isaac – a stoic character played by Robinson with brilliant emotional qualities – wants nothing to do with Benjy when the two first meet. There is no room for children in Isaac’s plans for the future, not even in the corner of his current kitchen where he has to lock himself in every time the police show up ready to beat people to death.
But as resourceful as Benji is, he’s just a boy Isaac knows will end up running away with Staples’ group or being murdered as they live in a world full of people designed to leave people like them no choice in the world of systems.Core Concepts from Different Perspectives kitchen has been explored in other genres of film, e.g. attack block and They cloned Talonboth leaning more towards their respective hard science fiction elements.
what makes kitchen What makes it feel so unique, however, are its subtle touches of speculative futurism, highlighting the reality of how high-risk communities are put under surveillance and how riots can ultimately become an organic response to state-sponsored violence. Through Lord Kitchener’s broadcast and Isaac’s impending fear, kitchen Never letting you lose sight of the fact that the Kitchener family is fighting for their lives in a war they are unlikely to win.
But at the heart of this struggle, there is undeniable hope and beauty in the lives of everyone in the kitchen. kitchenTo be able to showcase this beauty in big moments like the intimate scene between Isaac and Benji and the film’s surprising third-act dance sequence while telling such a heartbreaking story is a feat. Because of this, the film has become one of Netflix’s most influential new releases, and you’ll almost certainly start hearing more about it since it hits the streamer.