Chop Shop
Apr 18 - Apr 24, 2008
Ramin Bahrani, USA, 2007, 35mm, 85 min
Sponsored by KCBS 91.3 FM
Ramin Bahrani, following up his auspicious debut MAN PUSH CART, sets his story of a 12-year-old Latino boy and his older sister in Willet's Point, Queens, a 20-block stretch of junkyards and chop shops (where stolen cars are dismantled for parts). Perhaps it is because Bahrani and co-author Bahareh Azimi are both foreign born that they are able to accurately render an outsider's experience with palpable compassion and realism. With no sentimentality, CHOP SHOP suggests that, for many, New York City is closer to a third world country than the glittering jewel in the "land of opportunity's" crown.
"Miraculous! Now we have an American film with the raw power of CITY OF GOD or PIXOTE, a film that does something unexpected, and inspired, and brave." -Roger Ebert