[review]: Chop Shop
January 5, 2009
United States, 2008
Directed By: Ramin Bahrani
Written By: Ramin Bahrani, Bahareh Azimi
Starring: Alejandro Polanco, Isamar Gonzales
Running Time: 85 minutes
Not Rated
4 out of 5 stars
Chop Shop is such a beautiful, understated film that it almost feels like I’m insulting it by even attempting to review it. The film is more than capable of standing on its own—it says exactly what needs to be said, and nothing more. To add anything to it would destroy its delicate beauty—and far too often, this is exactly what film reviews do. To attempt “judge” a film—especially one as self-interpreting as this one—is a presumptuous task indeed.
That being said, Chop Shop is a film that I have to recommend. It has very modest goals, and it achieves them with flying colors. The third film from the North Carolina-born Iranian-American filmmaker Ramin Bahrani (after his student thesis film Strangers and his arthouse debut Man Push Cart), Chop Shop continues his focus on the disenfranchised people of the U.S., particularly those in the New York City area. At the same time, his scope has consistently narrowed throughout his career: Strangers was a small epic about an Iranian-American searching for his roots; Man Push Cart was concerned primarily with a Pakistani ex-rockstar who found himself operating a donut stand in NYC. Chop Shop is a very quiet story about a Latino street orphan and his older sister in Queens.
The characters are given no back-story, and probably have little future; the only thing that matters in Chop Shop is the action in the moment. The critics have been falling all over each other in the race to point out that this one is distinctly in the style of French cinéma vérité, and I won’t argue with that observation. Like the indie French films of the 1950’s, this one was shot on location, primarily with hand-held cameras, and almost entirely with non-actors in the starring roles, most of them essentially playing themselves. Alejandro Polanco plays Alejandro, an orphan who works primarily at a “chop shop”—a garage where stolen cars are parted out and sold on the black market—though in his free time, he also sells candy bars and bootleg DVDs. Isamar Gonzales stars as his sister Isamar, who joins him at the shop, but is secretly prostituting herself for extra cash. The story—what little story there is, anyway—is mainly about their dreams of buying a van to open a food stand.
As I’ve said, though, Chop Shop isn’t really about plot; all that exists or matters in this film are the characters and their actions. There’s a good deal of Italian neorealist influence here as well, albeit without the philosophical pretensions. The camera follows Alejandro and Polanco as they beg, borrow and steal just to get by. It never judges them, and it never implies that you should (or shouldn’t, for that matter). Things are simply presented as they are—not everyone in the world can earn an honest living, and not every action has proportional consequences. The message (if I can use so crass a term) seems to be that everyone in the world is exploiting someone else, with the only difference being that of motive. At the same time, Alejandro’s selfless relationship with his sister stands to challenge this (I dare you to watch the understated final scene and not be dumbfounded).
Bahrani’s camera is nothing short of awe-inspiring in its ability to capture astounding beauty, even amid the chaos and poverty of Queens’ back alleys—there’s not a single shot in this film that doesn’t have something to say. Paired with highly intelligent editing—where long takes mingle with surprisingly sudden cuts—it makes Chop Shop a thought-provoking piece for attentive viewers.
If there’s anything bad to be said about Chop Shop, you could probably complain that it fails to truly connect emotionally—but this is arguably the natural result of a film so focused on realism (see an extremely enlightening interview with Bahrani here). Viewers expecting some sort of ultimate catharsis need not apply—as with the rest of the orphans in Queens (and everywhere else), Alejandro and Isamar’s problems will continue, and won’t get better, unless and until the rest of us do something about it. In the meantime, Chop Shop will serve to remind us of man’s inhumanity to man.
Call it the antidote for August Rush.
