valley of ashes
by
Douglas Messerli
Ramin
Bahrani (writer and director) Chop Shop /
2007
American
born Ramin Bahrani, of Iranian descent, has become one of our country’s most
noted film directors, devoting most of his brilliant works to the poor
immigrants who, despite their magnificent displays of epic ambition and
attempts at assimilating into American culture, are outsiders who have a near
impossible time at being allowed “in” or simply given any open opportunity.
His first film, Man Push Cart presented a near Sisyphean struggle simply for daily
survival. His second film, Chop Shop,
presents with a much younger—and
amazingly tougher—young
man, Ale (performed by the startling fresh, Alejandro Polanco)—a street kid “find” who
cannot be matched, who survives through nearly any job he can take on,
including daily labor jobs, selling candy on subways, dealing out pirated DVDs,
and, throughout most of the film, working for Rob Sowulski, a somewhat
sympathetic owner of an auto repair shop in the Willets Point area of Queens,
once, as Roger Ebert reminds, described by F. Scott Fitzgerald as “The Valley
of the Ashes.”
Here, for a cheap and quick fix, anyone
with the money can get a quick paint job for their car, or have a broken
mirror, bumper, or front window fixed. The material used is mostly stolen from
other autos subject to overnight chop-ups. But daily, hundreds of desiring
drivers enter the zone to find the right shop to fix up their cars. Ale gets
$5.00 for every car he steers to Rob’s chop, and further money for helping run
for materials and actually working with the professionals on the repairs. It is
a Dickensian world in which there are utterly no questions about the use of
child labor.
But Ale is more than the tough exterior
he exudes. He is a true dreamer who, quite amazingly, and secretly, is saving
every cent he makes to buy a run-down food truck so that he and his sister can
create their own lives through a magic restaurant on wheels.
Through his young friend Carlos, he meets
a man who is willing to sell a dilapidated truck for only $4,500—a sum almost unimaginable
for a young boy, but which he is utterly determined to raise. Yes, he too
reverts to what some might describe as criminal behavior, loosing the rims off
of tires of the cars parked at nearby Shea stadium, peeling off bumpers, and
reselling them to other chop shops. He works nights to help in quick breakdowns
of stolen cars
with the oily next door owner, Ahmad Razvi as
Ahmad. He even robs a stadium event-attending woman of her purse, and steals
from his own sister, who—in what is clearly the most painful of his recognitions
in this film—he has observed working at nights as a prostitute. Almost in
tears, he still says nothing; his world is one of desperation, and he is determined
despite his total outside status, to change it.
As
in all of Bahrani’s films I’ve seen, any hope that these endlessly-hoping
figures might have is done in by the dominant society. Carlo’s uncle has been
willing even to cheat a young boy, as Ahmad reveals that the truck, even if it
were able to be refurbished on the outside, would cost more than $10,000 to
transform into a permit-passing food truck.
The totally believing boy has been duped,
and has no choice but to offer it, too, up to the chop shop for $1,000. He has
almost nothing to show for his months of sacrifices. And he cannot possibly
offer his sister a way out of her distillatory life.
Over the years, Bahrani has become a
major voice of the American conscience; and I only wish that all of our leaders
might see and feel for his films the way I do.
Los Angeles,
February 26, 2017
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