CHOP SHOP (2007)

In Chop Shop, director Ramin Bahrani (of Man Push Cart, Goodbye Solo fame) captures a coming of age story that is poetic & deeply engaging.

Chop Shop is the story of young Alejandro - Ale, as he is addressed by all - a young teenager trying to eke out a living in the outskirts of New York. He survives by doing sundry jobs to earn a living until he is employed in an automobile garage in a poor neighborhood. The owner of the garage also allows him to live in a shack inside the garage. Soon, Ale is joined by his elder sister Isamar who is in her late teens. She comes to live with him and starts working in a food van. Ale shares a warm relationship with her and also his close buddy Carlos.

Despite spending all his childhood in penury, Ale is an optimist & aspires a brighter future for both of them where they would own a food van in which his sister could cook. He strives extra hard to enhance his income by doing sundry jobs like bootlegging DVDs, helping the local garage owners to strip down parts of stolen vehicles, vending candies in trains and even occasional petty thievery. He saves every possible penny and is helped in this venture by his sister who contributes her own bit to realise their shared dream.

At one point, he is shocked when he discovers what she needs to go through to earn some more. However, he avoids confronting her and strives extra hard in the hope that she wouldn't have to toil any more than necessary. In his deep caring for his sister, he seems more a parent than her brother.

This is a movie which captures their joy despite their abject poverty, aspirations and dreams for a better future, struggles to earn a living and to realise their dreams, sorrow on seeing their dreams shattered and above all, their resolute optimism that stokes their hope for a better tomorrow.

The movie which has almost no background score sparkles in its sparse and starkly realistic setting. The actors, almost all of them amateurs, have given performances which gel so well in the narrative, that one feels that they far outshine their much more illustrious stars.

This is a movie where the director is less of a director and more of a keen observer of events unfolding in all their details in their natural order & pace. As in his other movies, on this occasion too, he successfully captures the lives of the oft-forgotten underdogs who populate the margins of the society.

This movie is at once, subtle, deep and makes a meditative connection with the viewer without resorting to any kind of melodrama or cliches.

A MASTERPIECE ....MUST WATCH !