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Man Push Cart (2005)

Director: Ramin Bahrani

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From Time Out London

The cart is a mobile New York coffee-and-bagel kiosk; the man pushing is Ahmad (Ahmad Razvi), a new Pakistani immigrant to the Big Apple. In his beautifully measured second feature, Iranian-American Bahrani follows this polite American-accented young man’s day – manhandling the cart through the streets at dawn, taking the A-train after dusk. His conversation is restricted to ‘You got it!’, ‘Cream cheese with that?’, or asking for cigarettes from the nearby hut operated by pretty Barcelona-born Noemi (for which, incidentally, he exchanges pirate DVDs). In this character study, Bahrani applies a minimalist approach, reflecting the subjective experience – he lets the facts speak for themselves – but his long, often music-less takes differ in effect from, say, Kiarostami’s. His movie is just that little bit less demanding; ‘directed’, attentive rather than serious, licensing the camera’s roving eye to linger over a twinkling East River skyline or stay on Ahmad’s play with a tiny kitten he finds.

Bahrani, even in silence, is eloquent as the Apu-like protagonist. Skillful, too, is the discreet way Bahrani slowly releases information about him (we hear, for instance, Ahmad had been a ‘rock star’ back in Lahore, and a couple of other revelations), inducing our sympathy and understanding and increasing the emotional depth without stooping to miserablism or sentimentality. Thus, what begins as a delineation of a man in a landscape becomes a study in sadness and stoicism, disorientation and even desperation, then finally, by extension, a delicate, rewarding and cliché-free enquiry into the complex heart of the lone immigrant experience.

Author: Wally Hammond 2006-10-03 10:03:25

Time Out London Issue 1885: October 4-11 2006