Hi everyone! Here is my much more complete abstract. More apologies for my tardiness forthcoming this afternoon.
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I would like to examine the role of food in three examples of contemporary migrant cinema from Germany. In defining migrant cinema, I take my cue from Daniela Berghahn and Claudia Sternberg to include work from non-migrant and non-diasporic filmmakers who still have “access to the, nevertheless, shared history and memory of migration and practices, viewpoints and aesthetic strategies of those filmmakers who were, by and large, relegated to the margins of European film studies in the late 1990s.” As such, my paper will include films by the Hamburg-born, second-generation Turkish-German director Fatih Akin (Soul Kitchen, 2009), the Westphalian Christian Petzold (Jerichow, 2008), and the Bavarian Anno Saul (Kebab Connection, 2004). I would also like to include a bit of background on how the döner kebab, a Turkish sandwich, has become the “hamburger” of Germany.
All three films unfold against a background of the food industry—in the case of Jerichow and Kebab Connection, specifically the ethnic food industry. All three are also characterized by a multicultural, multilingual cast of characters who reflect the transnational state of Germany’s contemporary populace. I am interested in how food functions in each film as a commodity and industry, and also a symbol of cultural identity and value systems. Here is a brief summary of each film and some of the elements I would like to examine:
1. Jerichow. Of all the films, food is relegated most strictly to a setting in Jerichow, rarely a narrative device. A dishonorably discharged veteran of Afghanistan, Thomas (a white German) returns to Saxony intending to renovate his dead mother’s home. Hamstrung by debt and his lack of marketable skills in Saxony’s notoriously weak post-unification economy, Thomas ends up being hired by local business magnate Ali. Ali, who came to Germany from Turkey as an infant, runs 45 fast-food stands that sell different kinds of ethnic food to passersby (we see shops specializing in Turkish and pan-Asian food in the film). Ali is also an alcoholic, and has had his license suspended—enter Thomas, who becomes his driver and general assistant in running the food shops. The other player is Ali’s beautiful (white, German) wife Anna, with whom Thomas begins an intense affair. The story plays out against the backdrop of a food industry that incorporates both the matter-of-fact cosmpolitanism and the (forgive me) McDonaldization of the contemporary food landscape.
2. Kebab Connection. Co-written by Fatih Akin, Kebab Connection tells the story of Ibo, the young (early 20s-ish) son of Turkish immigrants who dreams of making the “first German Kung Fu movie.” He builds his reel by making extravagant commercials for his uncle’s döner shop. Upon finding out that his (white, German) girlfriend is pregnant, Ibo has to decide how many compromises he is willing to make. He is aided in his life decisions by friends, including the son of his uncle’s rival, a Greek immigrant who owns a taverna across the street from the döner shop. Much as Ibo has been disowned by is father for impregnating a German girl, his friend has been disowned by his father for opening a vegetarian restaurant. To add insult to injury, the main fare is falafel, an “Arab” food. While the restaurants play a stronger narrative role in this film, the main story is still about Ibo and Titzi, his girlfriend. There is a lot to be explored regarding food and national identity, tradition, and commercialism/commodification/consumption.
3. Finally, I will look at Fatih Akin’s most recent film, Soul Kitchen. Unlike Head-On, Soul Kitchen is a light brother-comedy. Zinos, the son of Greek immigrants whom we never see, owns a greasy spoon restaurant in Wilhelmsburg, Hamburg’s most multicultural neighborhood (and also one that is rapidly gentrifying). His gambling-addicted brother Ilias gets a work-release from prison on the pretext of working at Zinos’s restaurant. Meanwhile, Zinos’s (white, German) girlfriend has moved to China to be a foreign correspondent, and he has to choose between his restaurant and moving to be with her in Shanghai. His restaurant undergoes a major facelift when he hires the volatile Shayn, a “gypsy” chef whose uncompromising dedication to haute cuisine and willingness to verbally assault unhappy customers lands him out of work. In the course of the film—which, again, is primarily a brother-comedy (and also a dual romantic comedy exploring both Zinos and Ilias’s budding relationships with (Turkish) Anna and (Italian-German) Lucia, respectively), food comes to embody at least two types of transnationalism: the McDonaldized, fast-food greasy spoon fare Zinos serves up at the beginning of the film, and the elite, cosmopolitan multinational “traditional” food that he offers after Shayn gives him a culinary makeover.
This is where I’m at right now. If anybody can recommend any sources that deal with food, consumption, and national identity, I’d love it. Thanks!
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