Immigration, abortion and the eternal search for the American Dream make up the ingredients of "La Cocina," a new film that examines the United States' most divisive issues through the microcosm of a New York restaurant kitchen. The tense, claustrophobic drama stars Oscar nominee Rooney Mara ("The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo") as an American waitress at a bustling Times Square tourist trap staffed mainly by immigrants. "It's a film about contrasts -- the contrast between back-of-house and front-of-house, between gringos and Mexicans, between the different hierarchies within a kitchen," said Mexican director and writer Alonso Ruizpalacios.
"Kitchens are an easy way to understand the dynamics we experience on the streets," he told AFP. Its release in Los Angeles theaters Friday, and nationwide next week, coincides with a US presidential election in which both sides have vied for Latino votes, and migration has been a fiercely contested issue. In recent days, an off-color joke by a comedian at a New York rally for Donald Trump, calling the US territory of Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage," has caused particular controversy.
For Ruizpalacios, restaurant kitchens are "melting pot of cultures" that naturally attract people of all nationalities, making them perfect settings for "highlighting the frictions between cultures." "They are also places where the pressure is very, very high..
. sometimes very painful things come out, and sometimes occasionally hopeful ones too," he .