Having read of Ramin Bahrani's new film, Goodbye Solo, I went after his prior films. This one was released in 2005 (Chop Shop followed).Manhattan streets are active characters in this gritty film about a Pakistani man who has left his musical fame back home to be with his wife and son in America. Somehow his wife died, and her mother blames him for that; in the process, she takes the child away from him. Ahmad pulls and pushes a coffee cart before dawn, positioning himself in a corner to sell coffee and doughnuts and sweets. Those streets are part of the prison that contains Ahmet and his debilitated spirit.
It is a tough way to make a living. Over my years working in Manhattan I talked with a few such vendors. One told me he started out from Suffolk County at 3am, to get to the corner of 3rd Avenue and (I think it was) 48th Street; his day would end around 11am.
Gritty, shot with a lot of dark shades, it is not a happy film, yet a satisfying one to watch, challenging any complacency, daring the viewer to see a side of quotidian life to which most are usually oblivious.
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