Today we have the poster premiere for Ramin Bahrani’s critically praised Chop Shop. To be released via Koch Lorber at the Film Forum on Wednesday February 27th, this is what I had to say about Bahrani’s excellent follow up to his debut film Man Push Cart after its world premiere at Cannes…:
“offers a boundary-pushing portrait and
how-to-guide for survival in a cross-section portion of a city where
many walks of life intersect. With the same sort of microcosmic
vibrancy, original location specific settings and similar age bracket
point of views found in recent American independent cinema examples of
David Gordon Green’s George Washington and Peter Sollett’s Raising Victor Vargas,
this Cannes’ Director’s Fortnight selection gets in the mindset, the
daily beat of a world that is unfamiliar, tragic and oddly comforting
all at once. For those who thought that the popcorn bio interpretation
found in The Pursuit of Happyness gave new meaning to what it is to struggle in this life, Chop Shop has even more to say upon the matter, here hustling and surviving in a
country where for the majority the American Dream is not about
overindulgence”…
Chop Shop tells the tale of Alejandro (Alejandro Polanco), a tough and ambitious Latino
street orphan on the verge of adolescence, lives and works in an auto-body
repair shop in a sprawling junkyard on the outskirts of Queens. In this chaotic
world of adults, young Alejandro struggles to make a better life for himself and
his 16-year-old sister, Isamar (Isamar Gonzales). With a mixture of childlike
naiveté and adult ambition, Alejandro begins obsessively saving his money to buy
a mobile-food van as the two dream about owning and running a small business of
their own. When their dream, and ultimately their loving relationship, is
threatened by the hard truths of life, work, and one another, Alejandro and
Isamar find themselves forced to make the kinds of difficult decisions that most
adults never have to.
For a larger version: click on the poster image below.
