Inside one of NYC's strangest kitchens.
Restaurateur Kenny Shopsin hates having flies in his kitchen and he's a dab hand with a flyswatter. He also really seems to enjoy swatting off "undesirable" customers-those who don't obey his strict rules. Even many of Shopsin's devoted regulars admit they find him terrifying or recall being thrown out on their ear on occasion.
In 2002, after 32 years in business, Shopsin was hit with what amounted to an eviction notice from a new landlord and he enlisted one loyal customer, artist-photographer-videographer Matt Mahurin, to shoot some commemorative stills of his venerable, grease-encrusted Greenwich Village premises.
I Like Killing Flies
, a 79-minute
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distillation of the 40 hours of video Mahurin ended up shooting, documents the last days of business at Shopsin's original location and the irrepressible endurance and cranky appeal of Shopsin himself.
By all accounts, Shopsin's serves excellent food. Good food, says Shopsin, is the result of "sexual friction" between incongruous elements, and this leads to some fairly offbeat concoctions. Whatever their actual taste, the sampler of dishes shown in rapid montage, including items like "postmodern pancakes" (torn-up bits of pancake cooked in a second round of batter), is long on entertainment value.
One thing Mahurin's documentary does not document is how Shopsin manages to accomplish what he does: offer some 900 menu options and prepare everything fresh. And, further, defying all known laws of time and space, he does this from within the confines of a minuscule kitchen crammed to the rafters with dangerously dysfunctional appliances and Rube Goldberg-esque "solutions" to various equipment problems. Shopsin's right-hand man in the kitchen is long-time employee José, and the two men reach around and squeeze by each other in the tiny space, executing what Shopsin calls a "kitchen dance," their movements aptly captured in Mahurin's sometimes swoopy, queasy-making and (perhaps deliberately) amateurish-looking camera work. For a large man maneuvering in a tiny space, Shopsin is remarkably graceful. He slings hash the way Jackson Pollock used to fling paint, with a kind of contained exuberance.
If Shopsin's regular customers enjoy "family" status, his actual family is integral to the restaurant's operations. His wife, Eve, is a constant helpmeet and four of their five children work in the
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dining room and/or the kitchen. The kids provide some of the film's most hilarious insights into their father's personality. No one could accuse the Shopsin family of being repressed. Their interactions consist mainly of yelling, arguments, explosions. Even the enlisting of advice takes place at top volume. But for all his bluster, Shopsin obviously adores his wife and kids and vice versa.
Kenny Shopsin's discursive style has a lot in common with his cooking style: rapid-fire freeform riffing, liberally salted with profanity, that can quickly escalate into a rant or veer off into the realm of philosophical observation. His mind is as eclectic as his menu, and he tosses out references ranging from Freud to Robert Heinlein. As he talks, his moral awareness and sense of ethical responsibility emerge. His political analyses, especially, are lucid, with a bitter ring of truth to them. In his view, all the ills of contemporary society would be far simpler if society invested more energy in trying to determine the meaning of life. Through Mahurin's affectionate and enjoyable portrait, we come to appreciate Kenny Shopsin's abrasive charm, and to admire his eccentric brand of integrity.
