I Like Killing Flies

Have you ever watched the oft-quoted episode of Seinfeld featuring "The Soup Nazi" and thought, "Is there anyway people like that can really exist?" Matt Mahurin's first feature documentary, I Like Killing Flies, answers that question with a resounding yes.

New York City has long been a breeding ground for elitist institutions and Mahurin's documentary highlights a venue with a selectivity unlike the kind you find in the average night club or fashion store. Shopsin's is a one-of-a-kind New York eatery that has been a staple of Greenwich Village culture for over thirty years. The owner and head chef is Kenny Shopsin, a robust, prickly, old pear who also serves as a culinary dictator, decreeing who can patronize his restaurant and what can be ordered at what time of day.

Shopsin isn't a completely unreasonable despot. His rules are grounded in sensibility but enforced with autocratic flair. For example, due to the limited space in his tiny hole-in-the-wall eatery, groups of five people will not be served under any circumstances. Naïve newcomers might offer to split up into separate groups but Shopsin will have none of that either "” he rules his camp with an iron fist. The bewildered customers will be kindly escorted out of the restaurant and made to read a detailed behavioral code. More dictatorial is the way he regards every new customer with fierce contention. Stating that each consumer will have to prove to him that they're worthy of being fed.

So what keeps the site so well populated? Interviews with faithful customers indicate that they inexplicably enjoyed being denied service upon their inaugural visits. More persuasive is Shopsin's food. Boasting a wide variety of fusion dishes that combine some rather unexpected ingredients and cooked with extra care, the customers' taste buds are treated to a uniquely satisfying experience.

Mahurin's documentary has little semblance of a narrative imperative pushing the events forward. There is the unavoidable truth that Shopsin will be losing his lease after 32 years of service and forced to move into a new location a couple of streets over. We certainly do get an ideal of how brutally arduous a move this is for him, but there isn't much tension about whether his business will survive. That matter is left on the back burner because the documentary is more interested in capturing a fly-on-the-wall depiction of the quirky restaurateur and his family, all of whom work in the restaurant in some way or form.

Your enjoyment of the film will rest solely on how you feel about spending an hour and twenty minutes with the unapologetically abrasive Kenny Shopsin. He is foul-mouthed and short-tempered but he also has an amazing sense of self-awareness. Not only is he incredibly funny, he's also remarkably intelligent. One minute he'll be comparing the viscous feel of egg yolk with

the female reproductive organ and the next he'll be discussing the existentialism of killing flies. He has the eloquence of a Woody Allen character mixed with the vulgarity of a David Mamet. He's also a devout follower of Freud, quoting him on several occasions. In fact, Shopsin's closing remarks about philosophy are really quite salient. He may be a bit of a nihilist, but he's got a supreme awareness that is enviable.

The direction is just as uncouth as the subject. This project clearly marks a labor of love for Mahurin and the budget must have been microscopic. Apparently holding the camera with one hand and a tiny microphone (that is frequently floating into the frame unpretentiously) with the other, he literally and figuratively has his hands full when directing the irascible Shopsin. Mahurin definitely could have benefited from a steadier wrist and should have spent more time on the epilogue but Kenny Shopsin is such an immensely entertaining subject that technical quibbles seem out of place. Mahurin creates a sense of intimacy with this ostensibly caustic subject that even could give even the most timid of customers the courage to dine at Shopsin's charmingly unconventional eatery as a result.

Then again, maybe not. Anecdotally, I recently stumbled upon his new restaurant, purely accidentally, during a Sunday jaunt in the Village. It was closed for business but as I stepped up to the glass window, I saw the mean, old grizzly bear bound out, strap on his helmet and hop on his beloved motorcycle. Even if he hadn't been moving at such a brisk pace, I doubt I would have mustered the courage to say something. I later thought back to the way the faithful patrons (who range from local eccentrics to lawyers) gushed about him on screen. I also recalled how Shopsin said that his prices were expensive to newcomers, i.e. there is no $0.99 Big Mac. But once they'd gotten over that hump, they found his prices very reasonable for what he was providing. Just as there is a learning curve for his restaurant, there's an adjustment period for appreciating the man himself. While I may be apprehensive about facing him in reality, I look back fondly on the 80 minutes I spent with him on the silver screen.

Movie Grade: B+

Synopsis:

In his feature debut, noted artist illustrator and video-director Mahurin celebrates one of his favorite restaurants "” and ours "” Shopins, a Greenwich Village institution, much beloved by its loyal clientele for decades. With over 900 items on his menu, all conjured up in his Rube Goldberg-style kitchen the size of a walk-in closet, Kenny Shopsin is chef de cuisine and proprietor. When there is a lull in the cooking, he steps out from behind his Frankenstein stove and holds court, serving up morsels of wisdom and wit on life, death, sex, politics

and even food. But, after 32 years in the same sheltered workshop, Kenny loses his lease and the family must now find a new location "” a move vigorously supported both financially and logistically by customers who can't bear the thought of life without Shopsins. Mahurin, himself one of the faithful, was asked to record the move for posterity, and what emerges is a hilarious and heartfelt hymn to individuality, independence, and idiosyncrasy "” not just in the kitchen, but in life.