Review: Cooking History (2009)

[Steve Rhodes]

COOKING HISTORY
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2010 Steve Rhodes

RATING (0 TO ****):  ** 1/2

Every film is to some degree a captive of its concept.  So it is with the 
documentary COOKING HISTORY, which is never as good as its theme -- the 
cooking of food for the soldiers in many of the major European wars of the 
last century.

It's hard to get a proper handle on why the film doesn't work, since the 
more I think about the ideas behind it, the more intrigued I become.  And 
parts of the picture do work quite well.  The old film footage of war cooks 
is fascinating, especially the relatively mundane sequences of things like 
German cooks preparing vast amounts of bread for the Nazi soldiers.  To 
remind us of how important this is, an old German cook lectures us on why 
German bread has been and always will be the "best in the world."  In the 
"entire" world, he feels the need to add as well, lest there be any 
confusion whatsoever about his claim.

Possibly the most common complaint about the movie might be the gruesomeness 
of some of the images.  Lots of dead soldiers are seen left forgotten in the 
frozen snow.  But what is most likely to leave one feeling a need to avert 
one's eyes away from the screen are sequences of animals having their necks 
sliced open, while blood spurts everywhere until the animal completely 
bleeds out.  Maybe in a time when more people grew up on farms, it would 
have been possible to watch this without grimacing, but today this footage 
will probably be shocking to most viewers.

Call me heartless, but I wasn't bothered that much by the animals being put 
to death.  I eat meat and know that they must be killed if I am to enjoy 
eating them.  Of course, I looked away some too.  I don't have an iron 
stomach.

The problem I had with COOKING HISTORY isn't what it did, but what it didn't 
do.

Structured as a series of interviews with sporadic overlays of footage, old 
and new, of food preparation, the interviewees talked generally like they 
had just come from a speed-speaking class.  They had a whole lot to say, 
that much is clear, but most of it just wasn't that interesting.  This left 
me being intrigued by the old footage, but little else.

COOKING HISTORY isn't a bad film, but I left disappointed that it never 
could find a recipe for success.

COOKING HISTORY runs 1:28.  The film is in German, Czech, Russian, French, 
Hebrew, Hungarian, Croatian and Serbian with English subtitles and in 
English.

The film is being shown as part of San Jose's Cinequest Film Festival 
(www.Cinequest.org), which runs February 23 through March 7, 2010.

Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com
Email: Steve.Rhodes at InternetReviews.com

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