Chop Shop (2008)
Aspiring filmmakers looking to make their mark in pictures that strive for naturalism, that appear to be “found”, but that also pack the cumulative force and catharsis of great popular fiction-already have two wonderful examples in 2008 so far. The first picture was Shotgun Stories. The second is Chop Shop. Chop Shop was co-written, edited and directed by Ramin Bahrani (of Man Push Cart, unseen by me, but that will be remedied) and he, like Shotgun Stories’ filmmaker Jeff Nichols, is startlingly young (born in 1975) to be making such a graceful-wounded picture. I was slow to catch Chop Shop, because I assumed it to be yet another predictable, one-tone portrayal of sufferers on the fringe of the American dream; yet another picture that encourages a good cry so we can feel better, get a good meal, go to sleep, and forget the entire thing the next day. We’ve already had one such picture this year (The Visitor) that we’ve already talked about. And I’m sure another will get awards attention this winter, they always do.
Chop Shop transcends its potentially self-congratulatory roots with patient, authentic feeling, and with an impressive, imaginative leap of curiosity. The picture opens on Alejandro (Alejandro Polanco), an early adolescent, waiting on the street-side, among other Latino men of varying ages, for work. Alejandro, or Ale, is thin, wiry, young, but is perceived by the man in charge as being unable to do whatever it is the other men are to be doing that day. That doesn’t quite deter Ale; he jumps in the back of the truck, only to be discovered again a few moments later. Ale is turned down yet again, but the older man, sympathizing, gives him some money for breakfast. Ale, a young man of many occupations, returns to his primary day job-the garage/junkyard that informs the picture’s title.
Ale jumps right out at us. He’s handsome, and his eyes are big and alive with intelligence and confidence; and with matter-of-fact obligation to find the next in-the next opportunity or place or meal or assignment. (His parents have clearly been a non-entity for some time.) That matter-of-factness is the key to both Ale and the film’s fascination. Bahrani accepts Ale’s perception of his predicament without editorializing, and he resists that tired urge (that ruins Paul Haggis’ movies) to establish his characters with numbing dialogue. Ale sees his life as an adventure, and this is allowed by Bahrani to remain tough and unsentimental. Ale’s optimism and instinct are, rightfully, acknowledged to be several semi-contradictory adjectives at once: heroic, delusional and dangerous. Ale’s entire life, in Ale’s terms, is just another thing that has to be gotten around with whatever works. But even that phrasing implies willy-nilly self-pity, which Ale lacks. Ale is quite obviously a survivor, and he has the swagger of a natural showman beyond his years. Even more importantly, Ale’s life hasn’t, at this point, compromised his decency: a test of that decency being, of course, the driving force of Chop Shop.
Ale’s sister Isamar (Isamar Gonzales) soon appears, after a few pleading conversations on the phone with Ale. Based on Ale’s side of those conversations, I expected a younger sister (Ale clearly sees himself as the elder) but Isamar is a few years older and turns out to be just as startling a presence as Ale. Isamar is clearly going to be trouble for a number of reasons-she’s a beautiful not-quite-woman, and, like most not-quite-women, she doesn’t have a full grasp of her effect on her surroundings (particularly men) yet. Moving in with Ale above the garage, we’re braced for something to go down between Ale, Isamar, and the various other older guys working in the garage.
Chop Shop never quite comes to the head you expect, but there are warning signs-an unchecked, never quite elaborated upon, tension between the siblings. Isamar occasionally disappears with friends with whom Ale rightfully disapproves, and she has money that her job at a lunch truck can’t quite explain. Ale watches as Isamar hangs her underwear in a visible place in the garage late at night-partially worried, perhaps partially curious. The sexual dawn that is about to, or just has, happened for these characters is handled with remarkable restraint here by Bahrani, who manages to avoid portraying day-to-day life in banal “that one summer everything changed” terms. The characters of Chop Shop are ever-slightly, constantly changing: influencing one another, repelling one another, embracing one another, etc. There’s a scene late in the picture, after Ale has suffered a major setback, where he tells Isamar that she should still be at work, despite having gotten off an hour before. (He’s telling her to go suck more dick.) Ale’s implication would be awful enough-but it was Isamar’s reaction that moved me-a look of slight befuddlement (she doesn’t know he knows) that Bahrani cuts away from faster than we expect. The hurt that Isamar registers a moment later is left off-screen for someone, or maybe no one, else to see.
That moment is typical of Bahrani’s approach here. The picture could give way to the obvious at any time (and truthfully, we still have a strong idea where we’re headed here) but Bahrani knows just when to nip a scene to avoid the blatant-the picture has an electric sense of life and mystery that never patronizes. Bahrani even knows, and this is a problem for many (particularly young) filmmakers, how to cut each scene so that that spontaneous, ahead-of-your-expectations-editing doesn’t upstage the characters. Chop Shop is one of those pictures where everything, for reasons you can’t quite crystallize, goes right. This is first youth picture I’ve seen in I-don’t-know-how-many-years that approaches the cleansing empathy of Steven Soderbergh’s ridiculously under-seen King of the Hill, which itself recalled The 400 Blows. Chop Shop’s ending, a brush away of birds that scoops us out of Ale and Isamar’s world with their fate left up to them, strikes a final, beautifully uncertain note similar to the ending of Truffaut’s film. We come away with a sense, without feeling dumb for sensing it, that Ale will always find the back of a truck to leap into. Or maybe Ale won’t; but we do know-for certain-that he and Isamar, for a few moments, saw the birds pecking at the seed on the asphalt.
★★★½
July 17th, 2008 at 9:34 am
“I assumed it to be yet another predictable, one-tone portrayal of sufferers on the fringe of the American dream.” exactly what I was expecting myself so this was a very pleasant surprise.
I also like how the flimmaker approaches the edge of melodrama time and time again, but never crosses it and certainly never wallows in it. As you say, this isn’t a molifying tear-jerker.
It’s true, you could pretty much see where the film was going, but the particulars weren’t always expected and the predictablity wasn’t a deal breaker. There was almost a sense of inevitability to it, yet I also felt that no matter what happened that Ale would bounce back.
That was the overall impression I was left with and it was an inspiring one.
July 17th, 2008 at 9:49 am
Yeah, Craig, I know what you mean, I love when pictures like this actually turn out to be ok or even great. In these sorts of cases I love to be wrong.
July 17th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Chuck, I will say right off that I strongly disagree with your summary appraisal of THE VISITOR, which you mention in the first paragraphs. This film is packs a genuine emotional wallop and leaves a lasting impression. For me it is one of the year’s four best films so far with THE EDGE OF HEAVEN, WALL-E and ALEXANDRE. But there are others at Craig’s site that seem to support your position, and I have boundless respect for you, so it’s just a minority situation that also has much to do with taste.
However, your review here of CHOP SHOP is exceptional as you have so much to say about a “small film” delving into the naturalism and nuances that made it work as well as it did. For me you hit the bulls-eye when you say: “CHOP SHOP is an electric sense of life and mystery that never patronizes.”
And I am particularly thrilled with that reference to a film that I have loved for years, but one that few have seen for some reason, Soderburgh’s KING OF THE HILL. SCHINDLER’S LIST aside, that was one of the very best American films of 1993, and its depiction of Depression-era angst was in a class by itself. The two boy actors appeared that year in a central New Jersey revival house to talk before the film, and I will never forget that trip.
I like your descriptions of the facial side glances that tell the whole picture here, as well as the entire description of Ali.
This was not a great film, as you were wisely careful to assert, but it was a good one. I’ve been told that it was filmed around Shea Stadium, where the Mets play; I’ve seen those blighted areas many times and they came back into focus in CHOP SHOP.
Congratulations on a great piece of film criticism, Chuck.
July 18th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I really need to see this. Everyone seems so positive. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts on The Dark Knight, Chuck. That seems like a film made for your thoughts.
July 21st, 2008 at 8:25 am
Sam-thank you very much. The Visitor did seem to split people, I get touchy when characters act so baldly out of a filmmaker’s thesis, and less of their own accord. This is obviously unavoidable to an extent-but I thought the picture had a very nice love story and squandered it in favor of something broader and less convincing, and that disappointed me. CHOP SHOP confidently sticks to its intimate roots.
K. Bowen-my DARK KNIGHT review will be up either today or tomorrow, still trying to fine tune it, and cut it down. I hope I live up to the vote of confidence.
August 19th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Great one, here. I had seen Man Push Cart but was only impressed enough to warrant a viewing of this. I’ve seen both only once now, but Chop Shop is a bit of an improvement, and I’m dying to see what he does next.