Dieta Mediterránea

(Photo Courtesy SIFF.ORG)

For my first film at SIFF, I chose a Spanish Film about feminism and ménage à trois. I thought that it would be a hilarious movie about food, culture, and sex, and I surely met my expectations. I rated this movie a 5 and would enjoy watching it again and again!

The film opens with a young girl in a kitchen, making her favorite desert and a couple smaller food items to sell on the beach. She meets a young boy who offers to buy something from her for half the price she was selling, and then another young boy who tells her how good her food is. She gets in trouble from her parents because she was not allowed to go to the beach by herself as her father thought she should only stay home and be in the kitchen.

The next scene we see Sofia, the young girl, she is a teenager who over hears the first boy, Frank, a restaurant manager, firing a cook. She jumps up to ask Frank if he has a job for her because he needs a chef and she was a good chef. He mocks her and tells her that a woman's place was in her kitchen...at home, not in a restaurant. The comment he makes is that only men can cook for money, and women cooked for their husbands. She tells him that is not true and one day, she would become the world's greatest chef. He eventually gives in and allows her to work that night.

This scene was an example of gender roles because, as Frank said, Sofia's role was to be in her own kitchen at home, not working as a chef. In Spain, and many other countries, chefs were mostly men and the restaurant business was male-dominated. As Sofia would have been otherwise out of luck in achieving her dreams because of the male-dominated business, she demanded to have the chance to work outside of her gender role and prove her ability. I find it interesting that women were not allowed to be professional chefs because, growing up, my mother always was the cook and I never once saw my father, or any male relatives, in the kitchen. In my culture, the women do all the cooking, work in restaurants, and cater major events. It was different for me as an adult to see men owning a majority of the high-class restaurants I enjoy today, but nonetheless, I see how the business is completely dominated.

Sofia, shortly after her first shift as a chef, meets another young man who is working at a gas station. He is incredibly handsome and wholesome. The ideal boyfriend/partner. She ends up dating him and being completely infatuated with him sexually. They begin a relationship, which eventually transforms into marriage.

Frank becomes much more adept at the restaurant business, pursuing his career further than his local operations. Along the way, he finds Sofia again, and offers to take her with him to show her skills as a chef. She leaves Toni, her husband, to go run off with Frank and become a chef in a fancy restaurant. Sofia and Frank also begin a romantic, sexually charged, relationship. Frank is hot, but not the wholesome husband type that Toni is. As their relationship boils, Toni finds Sofia and demands she return home so they can start a family. Which they do.

As a few years go by, Sofia and Toni have 3 children and Toni is a successful Real Estate Agent, while Sofia is a housewife. Sofia is unhappy with where her life has brought her professional, though is content being a mom and wife. Frank magically comes to the rescue and Sofia attempts to leave Toni again to pursue her career as a chef. Toni catches up to them and demands their return, offering a property which they could transform into their own restaurant. Frank entertains the idea, and returns home with them.

Through the duration of their careers, Frank, Toni, and Sofia become involved sexually, lead by Sofia who demands both their comfort. Sofia breaks more sexual boundaries by encouraging a bisexual threesome with her two men, making a much more interesting twist in this sexually charged film. The "normal" relationship is between one man and one woman, as Toni has dejected to, but Sofia rejects that idea and then gets her way.

The relationship lasts many years, the restaurant is a major success, and the three of them lived happily ever after. With 3 kids. Together.