‘La Cocina’: American Dream, Love, and Dilemmas on Screen
Producer Ramiro Ruiz, actress Anna Diaz, Mexican actor Raul Briones Carmona, US actress Rooney Mara and Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios pose during a photo call for the film "La Cocina". ©Ronny Hartmann /AFP

Exploring immigration and the pursuit of the American Dream, La Cocina by Alonso Ruizpalacios dives into the backrooms of a New York restaurant, where hopes, dilemmas, and tensions intersect, reflecting the cultural and social dynamics of American society.

Immigration, abortion, and the pursuit of the American Dream: these are the explosive ingredients of the Mexican-American film La Cocina, which takes us behind the scenes of a New York restaurant. This social fresco explores themes at the heart of the tense electoral campaign ending next week in the United States, where the film will be released, although it does not yet have a release date in France.

Rooney Mara, who won the Best Actress award at Cannes in 2015 for Carol and is a two-time Oscar nominee, plays a waitress in a tourist-trap restaurant in Times Square, among a team largely made up of immigrants, including Pedro, played by Mexican actor Raul Briones.

"It's a film about contrasts — between the kitchen and the dining area, between the 'gringos' (Americans) and Mexicans, and between different hierarchies within a kitchen," explains Mexican director and screenwriter Alonso Ruizpalacios. "Kitchens are a reflection of the social dynamics we experience on the streets," he adds in an interview with AFP.

For Alonso Ruizpalacios, restaurants represent a "cultural melting pot," transforming them into ideal spaces to "highlight the frictions" between cultures. "They are also places where the pressure is very high, where painful moments can emerge, but where glimpses of hope occasionally appear as well," he adds.

The film is inspired by the eponymous play by Arnold Wesker, published in 1957, which deals with the immigrant experience and the disillusionment of the dream of social mobility through hard work. However, the 46-year-old director also drew from his own experience as a dishwasher in a similar restaurant in London during his student years.

In La Cocina, Pedro, an undocumented Mexican immigrant, falls in love with Julia, the waitress played by Rooney Mara, who only partially reciprocates his feelings. While they dream of an idyllic future together, Julia faces a crucial dilemma: should she have an abortion or not? All this takes place amidst the chaos of a busy restaurant where customers remain oblivious to the employees.

"I wanted to show the people working behind closed kitchen doors," says Alonso Ruizpalacios, describing "people with families, dreams, and who work very hard for very little." He also emphasizes his refusal to oversimplify his characters to avoid stereotypes: "Often, in this type of film, Americans are made to reflect on their own prejudices by idealizing the other, which didn’t interest me."

The characters are complex people, with their own contradictions. Although the film resonates with the current election campaign — as candidates vie for the Latino vote — the director chose to shoot in black and white, to give it a timeless quality. "There’s something enduring in this story. It’s still relevant 70 years later."

With AFP

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