Chop Shop (2007)

Director:

Ramin Bahrani

Writers:

Bahareh Azimi (writer)
Ramin Bahrani (writer)

Release Date:

27 February 2008 (USA)

Plot:

Alejandro, 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, New York. In this chaotic world of adults, young Alejandro struggles to make a better life for himself and his 16-year-old sister, Isamar. |

Awards:

4 wins & 5 nominations

Cast

Alejandro Polanco	...	Ale
Isamar Gonzales	...	Isamar
Ahmad Razvi	...	Ahmad
Carlos Zapata	...	Carlos
Rob Sowulski	...	Rob
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Walter Albia	...	Cell Phone Customer 3
Manny Albos	...	Worker of Willet's Point
Sherman Alpert	...	Truck 'John'
Pedro Altamirano	...	Ahmad's Worker 1
Sneha Amin	...	Ahmad's Friend
Carlos Ayala	...	Carlos the Pigeon Worker
Bedford T. Bentley	...	Broken Mirror Customer (as Nick Bentley)
Angelo Carillo	...	Worker of Willet's Point
Raoul Chucaralao	...	Ahmad's Worker 2
Nicholas Corelisco	...	Ahmand's Friend
Carla Cubit	...	Ahmad's Escort
Nichole Dingee	...	Woman with Baby
Cesar Di Parra	...	Car Thief 2
Nicholas Elliott	...	Subway Customer
Anthony Felton	...	Carlos's Uncle
Tyrone Gray	...	Worker of Willet's Point
Roy Franisco Green	...	Rob's Worker 2
Jesus Manuel Gutierrez	...	Car Thief 1
Nick Jasprizza	...	The 'John'
Billy Klatzis	...	Rob's Worker 3
Frank Lukacs	...	Parking Lot Cop
William Anthony Morales	...	Lilah's Friend 2
Tony Motos	...	Worker of Williet's Point
Farooq 'Duke' Muhammad	...	Duke
Michael 'Gringo' Nieto	...	Construction Foreman
Evelisse 'Lilah' Ortiz	...	Lilah
Laura Patalano	...	Laura
Jimmy Peña	...	Cell Phone Customer 1
Derek Quick-Reide	...	Baby in Stroller
Kirstine Quick-Reide	...	Woman with Baby
Roberto Ramirez	...	Cell Phone Customer 2
Edwin Rojas	...	Rob's Worker 1
Scott Romstadt	...	College Kid (scene cut)
Shawn Leon Thomas III	...	Ahmad's Friend
Anna Torevski	...	Ahmad's Friend
Damien Velez	...	Lilah's Friend 1
Aben Garces Zavala	...	Ahmad's Friend
Kilian Zavala	...	Ahmand's Friend

Runtime:

USA:84 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Canada:14A | USA:Unrated | Netherlands:16

Filming Locations:

Queens, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Muskat Filmed Properties

Soundtrack:

Homenaje De Los Musicos Latinos

A poignant character study

Alejandro (Alejandro Polanco), called Ale for short, works at an auto-body repair shop in what has come to be known as the Iron Triangle, a deteriorating twenty block stretch of auto junk yards and sleazy car repair dealers close to Shea Stadium in Queens, New York. Here customers do not question whether or not parts come from stolen cars or why they are able to receive such large discounts, they simply put down their cash and hope that everything is on the up and up. Sleazy outskirts like these are not highlighted in the tour guides but Iranian-American director Ramin Bahrani puts them on vivid display in Chop Shop, a powerful Indie film that received much affection last year at Cannes, Berlin, and Toronto. A follow up to his acclaimed "Man Push Cart", Bahrani spent one and a half years in the location that F. Scott Fitzgerald described as in the Great Gatsby as "the valley of the ashes".

For all its depiction of bleakness, Chop Shop is not a work of social criticism but, like Hector Babenco's Pixote, a poignant character study in which a young boy's survival is bought at the price of his innocence. Shot on location at Willets Point in Queens, Bahrani makes you feel as if you are there, sweating in a hot and humid New York summer with all of its noise and chaos. The film's focus is on the charming, street-smart 12-year-old Ale who lives on the edge without any adult support or supervision other than his boss (Rob Sowulski), the real-life proprietor of the Iron Triangle garage. Polanco's performance is raw and slightly ragged yet he fully earned the standing ovation he received at the film's premiere at Cannes along with a hug from great Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami.

Cramped into a tiny room above the garage together with his 16-year-old sister Isamar (Isamar Gonzales) who works dispensing food from a lunch wagon, Ale is like one of the interchangeable spare parts he deals with. While he has dreams of owning his own food-service van, in the city that never sleeps, he knows that the only thing that may make the "top of the heap" is another dented fender. In this environment, Ale and Isi use any means necessary to keep their heads above water while their love for each other remains constant and they still laugh and act out the childhood that was never theirs. As Barack Obama says in his book "Dreams From My Father", the change may come later when their eyes stop laughing and they have shut off something inside. In the meantime, Ale supplements his earnings by selling candy bars in the crowded New York subways with his friend Carlos (Carlos Zapata) and pushing bootleg DVDs on the street corners, while Isi does tricks for the truck drivers to save enough money to buy the rusted $4500 van in which they hope to start their own business.

Though Ale is a "good boy", he is not above stealing purses and hubcaps in the Shea Stadium parking lot, events that Bahrani's camera observes without judgment. In Chop Shop, Bahrani has provided a compelling antidote to the underdog success stories churned out by the Hollywood dream factory, and has given us a film of stunning naturalism and respect for its characters, similar in many ways to the great Italian neo-realist films and the recent Iranian works of Kiarostami, Panahi, and others. While the outcome of the characters is far from certain, Bahrani makes sure that we notice a giant billboard at Shea Stadium that reads, "Make dreams happen", leaving us with the hint that, in Rumi's phrase, "the drum of the realization of that promise is beating,"