Comparative Essay: Soul Kitchen and Sushi in Suhl Movies

After watching the two movies, Soul Kitchen and Sushi in Suhl. Soul Kitchen is a movie about a man named Zino who runs a Greek Restaurant, called Soul Kitchen. It is a shabby run-down place that appears to be struggling financially at the beginning of the film, his brother. Sushi In Suhl is a film about a cook named Rolf Anschutz and his wife who run a restaurant in Suhl. Rolf, the main character, sees food as an art form and enjoys trying and experiment with new things. The two films are centered around the art of food, and the relationships the two movies bring together. Germany’s food culture focuses heavily on breads, meats, and potatoes. Both of the films show not very traditional German dishes, very little—or if any. The two shows focus more on food diversity, as we saw in Sushi in Suhl, which focused on Japanese food culture and their dishes. In my opinion, the theme of German food versus food that is “un-German” isn’t quite portrayed in either of the films. I was expecting more of an education on German food, German culture. Zino, the main character of Soul Kitchen runs a Greek restaurant, when at first, he is serving pizza, fries, hamburgers, and more seemingly “comfort” foods in a kitchen that is filled with health code violations.

In Sushi In Suhl, the movie focuses heavily on the relationship between Rolf, and his relationship with Dr. Hayashi after Dr. Hayashi is introduced after Rolf gets the idea to feature a Japanese theme for food when he is tucking his son in at night. The first representation we see of Japanese Food and Japanese culture from Rolf is rather insensitive, where his waitress, Gisela, dresses up as a Geisha to fit the theme of the restaurant that night. Later in the movie, he is taught proper cuisine and ends up going to Japan. 

The theme of German food versus “un-German” that is portrayed in both films Soul Kitchen and Sushi in Suhl are thinly held, where the movies are heavily based on the relationship’s food can bring together and new opportunities that are shown because of the exploration that was done with dishes. 

The role that the restaurant patrons play in both films are those of supporting roles, they support the main character to possibly do their best in the success of their restaurants. However, at first many of the expectations conflict with the goals of the restaurant owners and chefs. In Soul Kitchen, we see the restaurant running downhill, going bankrupt and Zino is severely in debt, until he hires a chef from another restaurant who drastically changed their menu and dishes to make them appear more “high-end”, which as a result ends up bringing a large influx of customers. The film where I saw that there was a hint of wider criticism of German society was in Sushi in Suhl, The chef Rolf Anschutz and his wife Ingrid run the HO -Restaurant Waffenschmied in Suhl , which once belonged to his parents but was then nationalized, we see the issue when Rolf brings the Japanese dishes into his restaurant and throughout the movie, we saw a disgust with Japanese culture and the dishes due to the political tensions that were going on at the time, despite the film’s intentions not meaning to be about politics. 

The important of the time and setting within both films plays a major role, especially in Sushi in Suhl, which as I had described previously, was when tensions where high between Germany and Japan, prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. However, time does not play a major role in the movie Soul Kitchen. What does play a major role is the way that German films. Soul Kitchen is seemingly a comedy that revolved around music. The effects these two films have on the depiction of German culture is that they are incredibly similar to the United States. There is similar humor, and plot twists. I could also just be thinking this because of my previous German-language learning experience and interaction with German exchange students where I feel as if the two are almost similar. In the film Sushi in Suhl I certainly noticed that there was more of a “prideful” feeling, but that was likely due to the time period the film was written for, when tensions were high. 

My personal reaction to the films were separate opinions. I really liked Soul Kitchen, and the humor that came with it. At first, I found myself making Ratatouille jokes as I had thought that maybe it might take some sort of “mouse takes Greek restaurant and decided that it’ll be an amazing beer drinking joint” situation, but obviously that was not the direction the film took. I found myself empathizing with Zino, when he had been taking care of team how he was. I saw him trying to make sure everything was ready so he could join his love interest, Nadia, in China so they could be together. However, In Sushi in Suhl I found myself more confused a the plot, as I wasn’t following along well, and this made it difficult for me to truly look into the film and properly analyze it. I was expecting more of movies similar to “Good Bye Lenin” or “Strozek” , which are other iconic German films that need to be seen by more people. 

I feel as if both films that were shown envoke a deeper truth, such as “don’t give up on your dreams”- or along the lines there. I truly felt as if the main theme of both of these films are still that food brings everyone together and builds relationships and allows others to meet new people through the art and creation of food and its success.