MAN PUSH CART Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Filmsphilos
Grade: B
Directed by: Ramin Bahrani
Written By: Ramin Bahrani
Cast: Ahmad Razvi, Leticia Dolera, Charles Daniel Sandoval, Ali Reza, Farooq “Duke” Mohammad, Upendran K. Panicker, Arun Lal, Razia Mujahi, Hassan Razvi
Screened at: Angelika, NYC, 9/8/06
Opens: September 8, 2006 Before you head for work, what do you do for breakfast? If you’re a suburbanite, you’re likely to dash from your house and into your car with a piece of toast in your mouth. If you’re from a major urban center like the Big Apple, you might stop by a cart, usually run by someone of Middle-Eastern origin, and pick up a sesame bagel or a chocolate donut or coffee. These choices may not stand up nutritionally when compared with a bowl of Shredded Wheat and soy milk, but when you watch Jay Leno every night, you just don’t have the time. Fortunately for those who care little about nutrition (and also not too demanding of gourmet eats), most if not all of New York City’s boroughs are attended by large carts serving the aforementioned donuts, bagels and coffee. The bagels are more like bread with holes in the middle and the coffee hardly up to Starbucks or Viennese quality, but who’s judging? In “Man Push Cart,” Iranian-American writer-director-editor Ramin Bahrani takes us behind the cart for a look at the fellow who’s tending. In this case, Ahmad (Ahmad Razvi), a Pakistani from Lahore, loads up his cart during the night to be ready for his loyal and sometimes friendly customers on every working day. Ahmad is not a happy guy, but he seems not to blame his misfortune on his choice of vocation. Though purported to be a rock star back in his native city (though we have evidence of only one CD that he made), he feels down and out not principally because he has to raise the rest of $5,000 to by the cart, but mainly because his wife has died and he is forbidden by his hostile in-laws to see his son because the boy’s caretakers say “it’s your fault” that his wife died. (Their reasoning is never clarified.) To raise extra money he sells bootleg porno DVDs–$8 or $15 for two–and does odd carpentry jobs when he can find the work. In fact when Mohammad (Charles Daniel Sandoval), a businessman with a bland American accent, offers him a job in his apartment together with an advance on his pay, Ahmad’s hopes are raised, but not for long. A bright spot in his day is his meeting with Noemi (Leticia Doloera), a cute woman in her early twenties from Barcelona who is running a news kiosk close by, though Mohammad cramps Ahmad’s style by courting the young woman himself. Disappointed will be those who favor their movies in clear, 35mm film with shots taken during broad daylight or brilliantly lighted as we’re accustomed to with film that have a decent. budget. With HD blown up to fill the screen, much of Bahrani’s filming takes place at night, at which time we’re happy to see just a little more than shadows of the performers. Ahmad, who has little dialogue because of his sadness, seems to carry the city’s weight on his shoulders, not the least because he trudges with his heavy cart using “one manpower.” Some will consider this a trope for the myth of Sisyphus, who forever carried a rock up a hill only to see it roll down, forcing him to do the same ad infinitum. Not for Ahmad is the American Dream. In a closing shot, we see the streets decorated with Christmas lights as though New York were a festival for all, but the lights shine little on Ahmad, who is so depressed in this country that we wonder how much worse his life could have been in Pakistan. Bahrani, then, takes us behind the bagels and the coffee to give us a picture of one of the people virtually unknown by their customers or even courted by the politicians. “Man Push Cart” has amateurish acting for all except Dolera and Razvi, but then, Ahmad Razvi knows whereof he speaks as he is a veteran pushcart attendant in real life. Not Rated. 87 minutes 2006 by Harvey Karten
harveycritic@cs.com Member: NY Film Critics Online | 
