Man Push Cart

After hearing such high praise about this director, and seeing that this film had become a critical and festival darling, I had high hopes. Actually, since most "festival darlings" wind up being some of the most tedious films any person will be forced to sit through, let's say I was more impressed with what many well-respected critics had to say. Unfortunately, my hopes were dashed. It's more baffling to me than anything, to see such laurels heaped on a film that truly has so little to offer. The characters are 1-dimensional and there's virtually no story to unravel. But even the documentary-like nature of the film never really explores any topic in much detail, but instead provides only a surface look at the characters' lives. People are introduced and then disappear, and watching the non-professional cast of actors attempting to create conflict in poorly improvised scenes, is often painful to watch. After our protagonist finds a lost kitten, it is exploited for all it's inherent cuteness, but even that "subplot" ends with no apparent point to be made other than life is often difficult. Not to mention the fact that what happens in the final 10 minutes of the film is so absurdly improbable (akin to someone picking up an elephant and running down the street with it in the blink of an eye), that it almost makes one want to groan aloud. Many of the reviews wax on about how "real" Man Push Cart is. True enough, although, the fact that this film expects us to believe that a gorgeous woman (conveniently single and working at a newsstand), would practically throw herself at a lowly, schlubby, shy pushcart operator with zero confidence, in a way that would make Judd Apatow proud, might create some conflict in our suspension of disbelief. But even for the parts of the film that are quite real, real doesn't always mean interesting. If you want to see a compelling film about a lonely man, rent Taxi Driver. If story isn't quite your thing, then you might want to consider a Kiarostami film. Kiarostami is a master of telling tiny little "real" stories which one cannot pull themselves away from, or soon forget.

To me, this film represents a new variety of the bad movies. So the 3 stars I give it are mostly for inventing a new genre. There are many bad movies out there but not similar to this one. From the very beginning, I could not understand if I was watching a documentary or a movie. For a documentary, it was lacking a voice-over. Plus, the supporting characters' behavior/motivation looked a bit too scripted/contrived. For a real movie, it lacked the plot and the dialog. For a real movie that is just so out there that it does not need either a plot or a dialog, it lacked that spark of life and originality that captures your imagination and keeps you glued to the screen until the end (and then you want more). We meet a Pakistani immigrant who used to be a popular singer in Lahore and who is now reduced to doing menial work in NYC in the name of, I suppose, the great American Dream. I say "I suppose" because we never find out exactly how he got here and what he wants in life (besides seeing his son). The House of Sand and Fog, Before Night Falls, Mississippi Masala, heck, even The Kite Runner did it before and did it better (and that list is not exhaustive). There are some good technical things about the movie. The monotony of his existence is represented very well by showing how he gets the cart ready every morning by lining up cups, taking out bagels, etc. Exactly the same sequence is shown twice - at the beginning of the movie (in his own cart) and at the end (in the friend's cart). But what happened in between does not qualify as full feature film. A technically excellent film school project, but very weak if reviewed otherwise.

I watched this debut film of Ramin Bahrani at the 33rd Cleveland International Film Festival. It's a very minimal approach to film-making. There is good composition of the many pre-dawn scenes of Ahmad pushing his cart to its location in mid-town Manhattan. The bleak scenery of dark, low-lit streets, garbage trucks, buses and the constant noise of the city mirror Ahmad's internal landscape. We get some small pieces of his story, but it's very incomplete. We don't know why he doesn't try to regain the success he had in his home country, nor why he sabotages efforts by others to help him. How does the girl fit in? My expectation for a movie still remains that I need to be told a story, care about the characters or be wowed by technique. This was like reading the middle four chapters of a depressing book. I have friends who loved this movie because it lacked those elements which I find essential in film. For me, the movie could have been a twelve-minute short, repeated as many times as you find personally satisfying. I did very much enjoy Bahrani's 3rd film, "Goodbye Solo", where the story is still minimal but the characters are extremely well developed. It's worth watching "Man Push Cart" just to see how well Bahrani's core views are being honed in later movies.

There really aren't enough films made about the modern experience of immigrants in America. There's a huge vein to be mined there. Man Push Cart is a step in the right direction. This film follows a Pakistani immigrant in New York City who sells drinks and donuts from a push cart. He was a pop star in his native country, but is now reduced to nothing. It's a simple story, entertaining and moderately involving, told decently enough. Unfortunately, when you step back and look at it, it's all pretty vapid. Director Bahrani clearly aims for neorealism, even echoing The Bicycle Thieves at points, but the neorealist classics aren't nearly as simplistic as a lot of people tend to think. Here, the characters are two-dimensional, the situation is pretty shallow, and the distantly foreshadowed climactic event feels like a cheap ploy. I'd hardly call it a bad film, but I think much more could have been done with the subject.

And it's New York's loss, not his. Saw this film this afternoon at Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival. The lead actor, Ahmad Razvi, is not a professional actor, but he holds his own very well. He told the audience after the screening that he had pushed a cart, briefly, but was self-employed when he was discovered by the director behind the counter of his own restaurant. However, in my opinion this is the director's, Ramin Bahrani, and cinematographer's, a guy named Simmons, film. There is very little plot. It is about shining a light onto the life of one of the street vendors you can buy from in many of our larger cities, and never really think about. He has a story. Some people will be bored with it, but most of the more insightful audience members will never forget what they're so convincingly exposed to here. This is Bahrani's first film, I believe, and it's certainly an indication of great things to come. He's taken the legend of Sisyphus in this his first outing and transformed it into something we can all relate to. And it's something we need to relate to given our current distrust of Muslims, ex-rock star or not. Somehow, though, I doubt that many working at Homeland Security are likely to see it.

I watched this movie at the London Film Festival and walked in, in fairness, without very high expectations....in the end these have turned out to be the best couple of hours i spent in front of a movie screen over the last few years. I very much agree with some of the comments which relate this movie to "taxi driver". As the scenes go by there is a growing sense of willingness to continue to fight and try to achieve a peaceful happiness in a restless society like NYC, where trying to establish yourself starting from the very bottom appears an impossible challenge. The movie with a catching simplicity puts the viewer in front of the other new york.....away from wall street success stories or thrilling NYC crime movies, it shows a different angle of the big apple...the story of those which have the strength to face poverty and loneliness with pride, honesty and great determination. I found amazing how the director has been able to express such density of feelings and meanings of life with almost no words and complex dialogues, but simply through a man pushing a cart and talking through his silence.....a fantastic interpretation!!!

I sat in the theater at Sundance, watching this movie of my friend, Ahmad Razvi, and have to say that I was completely transformed watching him in real life to the screen. The movie some may think as a bleak, no-hope film. I mean, I will agree at times just that. Honestly seemed like there wasn't a break for Ahmad. The movie is about a man who makes his living in those little metal pushcarts in NYC. Pretty much his day to day experiences, fights, hopes and sorrows. He has a son that his in-laws will not allow him to see because they believe that he is the cause of their daughter's death. His wife's death isn't something seen in the movie but there are a lot of pieces where its alluded too. At the end of the movie, you see two men pushing a cart, one helping the other. I would have to say that this is ray of hope - a new beginning possibly for Ahmad, the man inside the cart maybe for us as well. After the movie, there is a section of Q & A which I found interesting. According to the director, he shot everything in a "box". Every seen is like that...just like life, there are boundaries. Things that we can't see beyond or even get around. That came through the movie with how dark it was filmed and even the music that was set with it. It is an awesome film that begins with bleakness but ends in hope. Maybe its a road map for something bigger.

Man Push Cart is a gem of independent film making. It is a beautiful, haunting portrayal of one man's life in an alien city. A thriving metropolis like New York is home to a myriad of stories. In the course of our daily lives, we only scratch the surfaces of many of these. This film delves deeper into one of them - the story of Ahmad, an immigrant bagel cart worker. There is some optimism, but equally, much disappointment. Moments of happiness, and many of sadness. Hollywood demands that the hero gets the girl, achieves success, and all is resolved in a "happy ending". This film is unashamedly and refreshingly un-Hollywood, and Ahmad's ultimate fulfilment is by no means guaranteed. Nevertheless, like Sisyphus, he will persevere. When the cameras stop rolling, and we leave the cinema, he will continue. It is this, together with superb lead actor Ahmad Razvi's own personal experiences as a push cart vendor, that make this film so convincing and compelling. This is a film that stays with you. For those of us who live in large cities, this film is a moving insight into the world that goes on all around us, a world that we skim past every day and quickly forget. Man Push Cart is a sympathetic, but not sentimental, snapshot of this world, and one that is well worth experiencing.

Ramin Bahrani writes and directs "Man Push Cart", the story of Ahmad Razvi, a young Pakistani-American street vendor who wakes up at 3am every morning to collect his thousand pound steel cart and drag it to a sales point in Manhattan. From this cart, Ahmad sells coffee, tea, muffins and bagels, though on the side he also sells bootlegged DVDs. The film is a modern day Sisyphus tale, Ahmad, like a figure torn from the annals of Greek mythology, condemned to a life of endless and futile labour. When he's not chained to his cart, heaving its massive bulk through the busy streets of New York, Ahmad tends to an abandoned kitten, longs to see his son (who hardly remembers him and who lives with his maternal grandparents), mourns the death of his wife and frets over not being able to instigate a romantic relationship, let alone communicate, with a beautiful Spanish girl who works at a newsstand. There are shades of early De Sisca, Visconti and Rossellini, "Man Push Cart" playing like a scrumptiously digital take on early neorealist films. Beyond this the film works well on at least three other levels, Bahrani serving up an affective tone-poem, and doing well to sustain an ambiance of affective despair. Precisely because he leaves out all references to the dangers that have dogged American Muslims and immigrants post 9/11, the film also has a certain political force, shining light on human faces many are quick to dismiss or deem alien. Mostly, though, the film works well as an exercise in existential minimalism. Ahmad's struggles are human and universal. Comparisons to Robert Bresson are therefore apt, though unlike Bresson's films, the absurdity, cruelty even, of Ahmad's travails never quite gets under your skin. 8/10 – Though an excellent film, this is a slight, one note movie, which perhaps overly romanticises its cast and its eye-popping city lights. See "Wendy and Lucy" and "Land of Plenty". Worth one viewing.

Man Push Cart (2006) **** One of the brightest stars who's shine is hidden behind the influx of barely inspired and boldly formulaic audience friendly indie pleasers, Ramin Bahrani made his big leap with this 2006 near masterpiece. Man Push Cart is a stripped bare expose of the life of a push cart worker, trying to get by so that he can continue to try and get by. Ahmad (Ahmad Razvi) was a former rockstar in his native Pakistan, but left that life behind to come to America with his wife and child. His family did not approve of him, and so they left their lives behind. In New York, he pulls his heavy cart through the predawn traffic, not noticed by the passing cars unless he is in their way. He has his regular customers with whom he chats, and has his vendor friends, with whom he barters and trades porno dvds for cigarettes or whatever else. He makes friends with a well off fellow Pakistani, Mohammad, who invites him to paint his apartment if he needs extra cash. Once there, Mohammad realizes why he has found Ahmad's face so familiar. He wants to set him up with another friend, who he says is connected in the industry. One day, his contact at a paper stand is replaced by a young Spanish woman. Ahmad is clearly attracted to her, and she to him. This is okay, as Ahmad confides in Mohammad that his wife died soon after their arrival. His son now lives with his mother's parents while Ahmad tries to save up the money to get an apartment for them. His cart is his lifeblood. His cart, for now, is his life. This interferes with his personal life. His wife's death has left him scarred, and although we're not told, we infer that Noemi and Mohammad are the only friends he has had since coming to this strange new city. Mohammad gets him a job working in a club, one which he leaves midshift so he can get back to his cart, to push and pull it into the downtown core. His inability to communicate his feelings to Noemi leaves her open to Mohammad, who also likes her. It's nonetheless clear that she wants Ahmad. But his life has no space for love right now - only pushing and pulling, selling and bartering. Trying to get by, so he can continue to get by. Bahrani, an Iranian raised in America, directs the film as minimally as possible. Man Push Cart is Bicycle Thieves redux - not that it is as good a film as that great one, of course, but simply in the same vein. It's akin to a French Minimalist Italian Neorealist made in America by an Iranian starring a Pakistani. The camera moves and cuts only when it must. Bahrani relies on the quiet resonance of his story and the muted power of his actors to tell it. As much a lover of bold direction as I am, understated direction is often the wisest, and even the boldest, choice a filmmaker can take. Man Push Cart is a slow and bittersweet film - often more bitter than sweet. But in the end, instead of being broken, Ahmad finds a spark of hope in his surroundings. He will have taken a tumble, but he has the perseverance to struggle on, not for his own sake, but for the sake of a better day to come. Then he will have time to love, to laugh. But for now, he will keep trying to get by today, so he can try to get by tomorrow, and someday get where he needs to be