by MATTHEW HAYS

Comedy isn't something one necessarily associates with Scandinavia. Lord knows, I don't recall falling out of my chair laughing the last time I sat through a Bergman film.

Thus Kitchen Stories, Bent Hamer's oddball period film about a group of observers who were sent into kitchens to see what Norwegian widowers' eating and cooking habits were, is doubly surprising. Though not slapstick or of the knee-slapping variety, Hamer is droll and often wickedly subtle in his deadly strain of humour.

The film opens as an employee of a Swedish home science company (Tomas Norström) is assigned, along with a platoon of other employees, to go to the homes of various Norwegian single men and find out what their kitchen habits are. This, it's supposed by the company, will reveal crucial information about how and what single men do, leading to a marketing coup.

Instead, Norström finds that the man he's supposed to be observing (Joachim Calmeyer) is appalled that his privacy will be invaded. Adding to the general weirdness are the company's strict rules of observation: onlookers will sit in a high chair above the kitchen. They will not speak to or interfere with the single men. They will simply observe, but not intervene or interact.

It's an innately absurd situation, one almost suited to Pinter or even Ionesco. Instead, the film becomes a gentle comedy about a growing friendship between observer and observed. As the two transcend the nasty, cold corporate mandate they've been handed, they bond over rebelling against the hard-ass supervisors, who don't want their uptight observational ship rocked.

Hamer's style won't appeal to all tastes, undoubtedly. This is a Scandinavian film, and at times the pacing led me to believe Bergman did have a hand in it after all. But Hamer's universe is a pleasingly distinct one, an ocean and many miles away from the standard-issue comedies we keep getting from all those dreary SNL types. Full of snowy locales, despite looking cold, Kitchen Stories manages to evoke a good deal of warmth.

Kitchen Stories opens Friday, Dec. 5 at Ex-Centris in original Norwegian and Swedish with French sub-titles

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