Under Pressure
felix
Like many college students, I survived via a diet of Ramen and hazelnut-flavored coffee. I didn’t really learn how to cook until I became vegetarian post-graduation and upon moving to New York City in 1994. Even then, my repertoire consisted of vegetable curries and different versions of pasta (not to mention lots of white-flour bagels and tofu cream cheese).
Then I discovered the Food Network. Mind you, I didn’t learn anything practical from watching Rachael Ray or the “Two Hot Tamales,” L.A. chefs Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken. And I certainly didn’t want to emulate Emeril Lagasse’s bombastic approach to culinary improvisation. I do wonder, however, how my life skills would have developed had I encountered a Home Economics class with a high school teacher like Wilma Stephenson, the leader in Mark Becker and Jennifer Grausman’s Pressure Cooker.
Set at Frankford High School in Philadelphia, the documentary spends a year with students in Stephenson’s class as they acquire knife and life skills.
I’d like to retire the trope of the tough-talking-yet-gold-hearted-inspirational-teacher-in-the-rough-inner-city-institution, except that the film is highly entertaining, easy to consume (if you will), and the young people featured in it truly are remarkable. I also appreciated the exploration of the complex lives of the students.
It was also fantastic to catch the excellent work of cinematographer Leigh Iacobucci, who has shot for Big Mouth Films’ upcoming Pushing the Elephant.
Pressure Cooker is now on Participant Media’s slate, whose website has good info on the film’s social-justice goals and what you can do to help reach them.
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| Posted on April 26, 2010
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