Grilled Cheese Sandwich:The Revolution of Everyday Lunch

admin — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 03:20:00 +0000

It’s everything a good grilled cheese sandwich should be—crunchy around the edges, lightly grilled, completely saturated and, of course, very cheesy. I mean this in a good way when describing this film, written and directed by Jonathan Culp who is co-founder of the Toronto Video Activist Collective.

Chock full of nutritional messages about breaking free from boring lifestyles, promoting choice, bucking the system and awakening consciousness, the film depicts a group of wayward teens who initially indulge in less-than-savory activities to escape the grim reality of being raised in a town called Grimsville.

Things begin to really sizzle, however, when the group bands together to form the grilled cheese sandwich club, which becomes a booming success only after offering sandwiches for free. This puts the club in direct competition with the high school lunchroom ladies (dubbed the Moose Meat Ladies’ union) and the capitalistic Squirrely’s Pizza franchise. After a little lunch revolution and the decapitation of the Squirrely mascot, it seems that at least three of the characters in the film break free from grimness and ride off into the sunset towards big city Toronto.

This is an underground film that does not adhere to standard mainstream film-making formulations. So, for those who like a nice, linear, seamless story, Grilled Cheese Sandwich might be a challenge. However, metaphors are rampant and the message is clear that maybe we all need to take a look at the formulations so many of us buy into and find some way to at least reconstruct them.

Grilled Cheese Sandwich could serve as a public service announcement in some regions seeing as how, even in 2007, there are plenty of people who have yet to break free from boring lifestyles, promote choice, buck the system and awake consciousness.

Written by: Sharon R. Cole, January 31st 2007