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CHOP SHOP Send This Review to a Friend
Sadness pervades this documentary-style story of a 12-year-old Latino lad and his sister, who are hustling to get by and trying to make enough money to buy a van from which to sell fast food. Reminiscent of the Italian Neo-Realism style, the film directed by Ramin Bahrani from a screenplay written with Bahareh Azimi, is heartrending in its depiction of life at the bottom rung in the face of those who would exploit the vulnerable.
The location is Willets Point, Queens, near Shea Stadium. The film captures the flavor of the seedy part of area, marked by junkyards and chop shops, where thieves bring stolen cars for them to be quickly stripped so that parts can be sold. Alejandro Polanco plays Alejandro, who is apprenticed as a mechanic with the added task of drumming up business for his boss. He also lives on the premises.
Alejandro is street-wise beyond his years. He has affection for his older sister, Isamar (Isamar Gonzales), who turns tricks to make needed money. Both maneuver in a potentially dangerous environment. One feels for the brother and sister, each with an innocence despite the hard-edge they have developed. But the filmmaker doesn’t try to pile on emotion. Instead, he chronicles their existence without frills, thereby dealing with their lives as an observer, leaving viewers to provide their own responses from the raw material that spotlights a milieu of which many New Yorkers are surely unaware. A Koch Lorber Films release.
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