Netflix’s new dystopian film takes viewers into violent social conflicts, but ends abruptly: we explain the ending of The Kitchen.
It is not uncommon for actors to decide to go behind the camera to tell their own stories. This is the case this time for Daniel Kaluuya, star of Nope or Get Out, who co-directed The Kitchen with Kibwe Tavares (from the Noughts + Crosses series).
Netflix subscribers were able to discover a dystopia in an overcrowded London, where the housing crisis has never been so bad. While social housing is being eliminated, ever widening the social divide with its most disadvantaged population, groups of former residents stick together and illegally occupy the last groups of buildings.
In the midst of it all, Izi and Benji struggle to find a place in a world that rejects them. But also to understand the bonds that unite them, sometimes against their will. The Kitchen is available on Netflix, and its ending may leave its viewers confused: we offer you some ideas for interpreting the social drama.
What happens in The Kitchen on Netflix?
The Kitchen takes place in the heart of a dystopian London, in which the social divide continues to grow. A united community resists plans to destroy social housing, and illegally occupies the last neighborhood that has not yet been razed by the government: the Kitchen, (or “the kitchen” in French).
Izi (Kane Robinson) is a resident of this neighborhood, but he tends to another life: that of an apartment in Buena Vida, reserved for higher social classes. The protagonist does not frankly play the game of solidarity. From the start, he does not hesitate to occupy the common shower and its water for himself alone to the detriment of the other residents, and if it is necessary to bamboozle the most deprived customers who come to the funeral home where he works, he does so, even if they are residents of the same neighborhood as him. After all, “commissions don’t fall from the sky.”
The situation changes when he meets Benji (Jedaiah Bannerman), a newly orphaned boy. His mother had spoken to him about his father, and many details agree to designate Izi. If the latter will first refuse any connection with the teenager, he will never stop coming back to him, without really confirming Benji’s suspicions: he agrees to take him for a ride on a motorbike, which will prevent him from getting too approach Staples and his band of disreputable rebels, and will even go so far as to offer the orphan room and board, while doing his best to keep his distance.
Is Izi Benji’s father in The Kitchen?
Izi’s paternity for Benji is never really confirmed in The Kitchen. But such confirmation is not really necessary: in the end, the adult agrees to behave like a parent towards the adolescent.
However, it was not an easy task: letting Benji depend on him means sacrificing his freedom and his goals of a more comfortable life for Izi. He therefore refuses to become attached in the film, despite an obvious concern for the teenager, which increases as the story progresses and the two characters discover each other.
However, Izi’s Buena Vida accommodation is finally ready: he must then make a difficult decision. If his first choice is to leave Benji, as agreed from the start, he will ultimately return to the Kitchen. Because in the meantime, a raid by the cops led to a real tragedy: the brutal killing of Lord Kitchener, neighborhood leader and inspiring radio host. Discovering the community’s mourning at her funeral home therefore makes Izi rethink her priorities.
He finds Benji during a new assault by the police in the Kitchen. As the two watch the police officers being trapped and bombarded with trash, they have a new exchange about their relationship: Is Izi Benji’s father? No response will be given out loud. But in reality, whether Izi is really the teenager’s father or not doesn’t change anything: he has decided to take responsibility.
Explaining the ending of The Kitchen on Netflix: Can the city still be united?
The decision has been made, but the situation is not necessarily better. Because the film ends on a black shot, while we hear the apartment door being broken down by the police.
But why did Izi come back knowing the situation? The choice of the protagonist does not lie solely in his bond with Benji. He also draws his reasons from what the Kitchen represents: not just a home, but life.
The only things we see from other parts of London are inert: empty streets, a funeral home where death is omnipresent and plants look like empty objects. Buena Vida’s premises are filled with hostile looks and its only interactions are difficult with artificial intelligence. As for the apartment that Izi finally reaches, it is cold and sanitized. Small detail that is important: the entrance is through a kitchen, but unlike the Kitchen, the room is cold, sanitized, smooth and lifeless. The accommodation loses all its meaning: none of the furniture has its history, unlike the lamp that Benji described earlier. The window overlooks projected fantasies, but never reality.
While in the Kitchen, we live, we share food and real meals. In cinema, the kitchen is often the heart of a home, and The Kitchen is no exception to the rule. It is at the table that the characters are best characterized: the lonely Izi does not cook and goes to the restaurant, the close-knit group at Staples shares pancakes house while integrating Benji into its ranks. It is also during the meal that important decisions are made, such as accepting that Benji stays longer at Izi’s house, or when Izi cowardly abandons the orphan to go to Buena Vida. What he will regret, pushing him to return to the besieged neighborhood, but still alive.
Explanation of the last shot of The Kitchen on Netflix: What happens to Benji and Izi?
We therefore have a mixed, bittersweet conclusion: on the one hand Benji finally obtains a home where he will be accepted, on the other the police are preparing to ruin everything.
The story, however, stops at this moment, suspending the moment in time. We won’t see the heroes get mistreated and kicked out of their homes, nor will we see them deepen their new relationship. But we remain at this crucial moment of Izi’s acceptance of Benji.
We can therefore see The Kitchen as a story of links between the inhabitants of the same neighborhood, of the same city. It is also a story of transmission, and of choice: where do we want to turn for the future of a city crumbling under social injustices? In the last shot, when Izi forbids Benji from looking towards the closed door and the police officers who are about to enter their home to assault them, he especially makes sure to show him the window overlooking the outside, thus hiding the excesses of society from him.
Also ending on the moment when a selfish individualist like Izi accepts Benji, despite the organic discomfort of the Kitchen, may mean that yes, this dystopian London can still change and accept all its populations, including the most deprived..
The Kitchen is available on Netflix since January 19, 2024.
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