Chop Shop
Directed by Ramin Bahrani at Film Forum
Ramin Bahrani looked ecstatic when his sophomore feature, Chop Shop, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year. Turning around to face the cheering crowd, the New York–based filmmaker was greeted by an enthusiastic Abbas Kiarostami, the Iranian auteur whose neorealist aesthetic had a profound impact on the 32-year-old Bahrani. His debut, 2005’s Man Push Cart, told the solemn story of a fallen Pakistani rock star resigned to selling coffee on the streets of New York. Chop Shop (opening this week at Film Forum) is another localized tragedy, documenting the struggles of an impoverished 12-year-old Latino (Alejandro Polanco) slaving away in a Queens-based auto-body shop and coping with the desperation of his older sister Isamar (Isamar Gonzales). Bahrani discussed his original method and the larger purpose of his art.
NYPress: The audience went nuts at the first Cannes screening. Did you notice a different reaction from American audiences?
Bahrani: Of course, someone in France doesn’t know Queens. They just know what the movie has shown them. When someone who lived there told me that I had shown them something they hadn’t seen, I considered it a compliment.
Queens residents would recognize the political element. Did the Europeans read into it that much?
Some of the more leftist papers in France really wanted to focus on the socio-economic elements of the American dream, which are 100 percent a part of the film. I think combining that with what happens emotionally between the brother and sister would be more accurate. The socio-economic stuff is there, the same way it is in Man Push Cart. You can’t deny it.
Your younger actors never experienced anything like this before. How did you coach your adolescent lead?
If there’s a meaning in a scene, they should never know about it. They’ll start to exaggerate if they think about those things. My working method is tricky—complete control and complete absence. It sounds like a contradiction, but it’s not. I’m in control of every single detail, and I like to be completely uninvolved. A lot of it is directing without directing. For Alejandro and Isamar, we rehearsed for six months prior to making the film. I never showed them the script. I told them what the scenes were about. Izzy didn’t even know what the film was about until she went to the cast and crew screening. I told them the dialogue and taped the rehearsals. We transcribed anything good that they added and incorporated it into the script. In this way, we retained an authenticity of language. We tried to stay in the logic of Alejandro. He learns [his sister] is doing [prostitution], accepts it, and says, “That’s for tips. Good money if you need extra money.” That’s the logic of a kid: She must be doing this because she needs money. So he steals stuff for her.
The urban quality of the movie combines beauty and disarray. Since you’re not a native New Yorker, how did you initially perceive the city?
I was born and raised in North Carolina and came out here in 1993 for college. My initial thought was that it was a place where there would be art that would be accessible to me. I was happy I could walk. I was happy to get away from a car. I don’t think human beings should be living in the suburbs. They should live in the country or the city. The suburb destroys your soul.
Because your films draw on neorealist traditions, they have a definite documentary feel, but you don’t make
documentaries.
I like the control of the fiction film because I like the arrangement of what seems to be nothing toward a specific meaning in the end—the accumulation of scenes toward an ending. Before you know it, you’re wrapped up in something. There is a blur between documentary and fiction that became clearer to me during Chop Shop. Alejandro worked for six months in the chop shops.
Your cinematographer discovered the Iron Triangle where Chop Shop is set. Was there any guerilla filmmaking involved?
We got permission. After Push Cart, Catherine Oliver [from the Mayor’s Office of Film and Television] and I became friends. They were so helpful getting me what we needed. Everyone in Queens was helpful: Shea Stadium, U.S. Open…
Maybe this is proof that film students don’t need to break the law in order to make neorealist art films.
I love showing my films to students because they could make them. In Iran [where Bahrani’s family comes from], we have censorship. You can’t talk about certain things. Here, we also have censorship: Too many young filmmakers censor their imaginations due to what they think will sell. This is a self-imposed economic censorship.
Directed by Ramin Bahrani at Film Forum
Ramin Bahrani looked ecstatic when his sophomore feature, Chop Shop, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year. Turning around to face the cheering crowd, the New York–based filmmaker was greeted by an enthusiastic Abbas Kiarostami, the Iranian auteur whose neorealist aesthetic had a profound impact on the 32-year-old Bahrani. His debut, 2005’s Man Push Cart, told the solemn story of a fallen Pakistani rock star resigned to selling coffee on the streets of New York. Chop Shop (opening this week at Film Forum) is another localized tragedy, documenting the struggles of an impoverished 12-year-old Latino (Alejandro Polanco) slaving away in a Queens-based auto-body shop and coping with the desperation of his older sister Isamar (Isamar Gonzales). Bahrani discussed his original method and the larger purpose of his art.
NYPress: The audience went nuts at the first Cannes screening. Did you notice a different reaction from American audiences?
Bahrani: Of course, someone in France doesn’t know Queens. They just know what the movie has shown them. When someone who lived there told me that I had shown them something they hadn’t seen, I considered it a compliment.
Queens residents would recognize the political element. Did the Europeans read into it that much?
Some of the more leftist papers in France really wanted to focus on the socio-economic elements of the American dream, which are 100 percent a part of the film. I think combining that with what happens emotionally between the brother and sister would be more accurate. The socio-economic stuff is there, the same way it is in Man Push Cart. You can’t deny it.
Your younger actors never experienced anything like this before. How did you coach your adolescent lead?
If there’s a meaning in a scene, they should never know about it. They’ll start to exaggerate if they think about those things. My working method is tricky—complete control and complete absence. It sounds like a contradiction, but it’s not. I’m in control of every single detail, and I like to be completely uninvolved. A lot of it is directing without directing. For Alejandro and Isamar, we rehearsed for six months prior to making the film. I never showed them the script. I told them what the scenes were about. Izzy didn’t even know what the film was about until she went to the cast and crew screening. I told them the dialogue and taped the rehearsals. We transcribed anything good that they added and incorporated it into the script. In this way, we retained an authenticity of language. We tried to stay in the logic of Alejandro. He learns [his sister] is doing [prostitution], accepts it, and says, “That’s for tips. Good money if you need extra money.” That’s the logic of a kid: She must be doing this because she needs money. So he steals stuff for her.
The urban quality of the movie combines beauty and disarray. Since you’re not a native New Yorker, how did you initially perceive the city?
I was born and raised in North Carolina and came out here in 1993 for college. My initial thought was that it was a place where there would be art that would be accessible to me. I was happy I could walk. I was happy to get away from a car. I don’t think human beings should be living in the suburbs. They should live in the country or the city. The suburb destroys your soul.
Because your films draw on neorealist traditions, they have a definite documentary feel, but you don’t make
documentaries.
I like the control of the fiction film because I like the arrangement of what seems to be nothing toward a specific meaning in the end—the accumulation of scenes toward an ending. Before you know it, you’re wrapped up in something. There is a blur between documentary and fiction that became clearer to me during Chop Shop. Alejandro worked for six months in the chop shops.
Your cinematographer discovered the Iron Triangle where Chop Shop is set. Was there any guerilla filmmaking involved?
We got permission. After Push Cart, Catherine Oliver [from the Mayor’s Office of Film and Television] and I became friends. They were so helpful getting me what we needed. Everyone in Queens was helpful: Shea Stadium, U.S. Open…
Maybe this is proof that film students don’t need to break the law in order to make neorealist art films.
I love showing my films to students because they could make them. In Iran [where Bahrani’s family comes from], we have censorship. You can’t talk about certain things. Here, we also have censorship: Too many young filmmakers censor their imaginations due to what they think will sell. This is a self-imposed economic censorship.
