The next time that hot topic comes up at the pub quiz or during intelligent dinner-party chit-chat, that of the complexities of and the chief protagonists in Norwegian Cinema, you'll at least be able to add this little gem to the topic.You'll immediately be seen as a true film-buff and you can feel very happy with yourself, especially as no-one else will know what the heck you're talking about. Throw in the film's premise and they'll start checking what alcoholic drinks you've imbibed on.I'm sure you've read by now that it's all to do with a 1950's social survey on how single men use their kitchen compared to married women. Even the funny little snail-like caravans that the surveyors sleep in resemble strange kitchen appliances. Director and co-writer Bent Hamer, who later made the more approachable and conventional 'O'Horten' certainly has a creative and mischievous eye and we are always quietly enthralled by the odd but homely goings on.The increasing interaction between the surveyor Folke (Tomas Norstrom) (who has been expressly told to say nothing to his subject) and Norvicke (Joachim Calmeyer), firstly when the latter's friends call by and they seem to dismiss as having a man in a thick suit and tie sat high up on a step ladder as completely normal and then conversation slowly but surely develops.Kitchen Stories remains one of World Cinema's hidden gems - quite modest, rather eccentric and totally unforgettable. Ultimately heart- warming also, this is one quirky little Euro-flick that can be enjoyed by many and many times over, too.

Picture sitting in a Psych 101 class, and being informed that part of your grade is to take a research survey. A graduate student plunks a stack of paper in front of you, and the first question asks whether you are Person Type A, Person Type B, or Person type C. Being person type R, this presents you with some difficulty. If that graduate student had watched Kitchen Stories, he would have realized that if you try to limit people into pre-determined roles, you sometimes end up missing some of the amazing things that they can do. This message is a playful gibe at social science research, but it opens up to be a much broader topic than you originally think. The characters in this movie, who are very different people, become wonderfully warm, lovable people by simply listening to one another. This is a message that our world might need to hear a lot more of. I'm not sure the casting could have been any better, as the two leads assume their personalities just so perfectly.

There are so many layers to this clever, funny and moving film. One of those that stays in your head for days. No violence, only a hint of sex, hardly a voice raised in anger and so many emotions expressed with hardly a word being spoken. If you find it a bit slow at first, stay with it and soon you'll be smiling at this image of a gentler, more peaceful and happier time. This is clever writing, directing and acting at its best. It's one of those movies you want to own as it throws up something different each viewing. The "frisson" between neighbours, generosity versus selfishness, a scientific view of life compared to a natural one are all carefully explored. If you like John Woo, leave this one but if you like grown up movies, see it soon.

In "Kitchen Stories" a Swedish company sends a male research observer to do time and motion studies of an old Norwegian farmer in his kitchen in an attempt to design a more efficient standardized kitchen. The film is all about this sort of "odd couple", one Swede and one Norwegian (circa 1950), who manage to carve a friendship out of little more than proximity during a bleak Norwegian winter. A subtitled foreign light comedy with little to offer save its very wry underpinnings and pleasingly poignant tale, "Kitchen Stories" is a not-for-everyone film which with appeal most to those into quaint and off beat little foreign flicks. (B-)