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#09 MANHATTAN YEAR ZERO
06/09/2005
Man Push Cart is a fully-mastered aesthetical treatment of the notion of alienation, the kind of paralysis James Joyce described in Dubliners, except in this movie, the epiphany only comes in fragments.
Ramin Bahrani depicts the excrutiating daily routine of a Pakistani street-vendor who seems to have resigned himself to being a linguistic and a social outcast working in the dark for busy New-Yorkers —a reification underlined by the ambiguous subject-less verb in the title. His hopelessness is beautifully rendered by the suffocatingly claustrophobic frame; in this film, the sky is always cut out of the image —in fact, everything outside his cart (normal life itself), seems almost unreal. The Iranian director has a systematic, hence implacable, way of dividing the space into geometrical boxes which particularly reminds one of Antonioni's films —the reference to Eclipse is actually made explicit.
Bahrani obviously belongs to the category of directors who privilege images over verbalised concepts. He does not work at a vertical level (multiplying layers of meaning) but at a horizontal one. However, the fact that he remains fairly univocal, at least in terms of plot, is completely relevant, for he deals with a character whose life keeps repeating itself over and over and over again, like a broken 35mm reel.
Your erudition is manifest. What were your main references for this film?
The Myth of Sisyphus, by Albert Camus. In some way, Ahmad keeps dragging his cart up the hill, and it keeps falling down. Yet, I want to underline that my film is not totally hopeless; there is some pleasure in climbing up the hill. Fighting also means learning to be content. My character is trapped in his cart, but I think it's ok. Nothing is black or white in my movie —even the people in it are of all colours...
In terms of cinematic references, I have more than I can count; I am a passionate cinephile, capable of waking up at six in the morning and call Michael to watch a movie together. We actually did that a few days ago, to watch Bresson's Pickpockets. Being from Iran, I obviously relate to Kiarostami. I particularly like Robert J. Flaherty, whose film Man of Aran won the Lion 1934 as Best Foreign Film at the Second Mostra. Of course, I love the Italians, De Sica, Antonioni, Visconti...
Why do you refer to yourself as an 'invisible' director?
For me, being honest implies that I should be as minimalistic as possible, set the camera at the most natural place and avoid making too many cuts (there are only 252 cuts in Man Push Cart, while the average film takes 1000 to 2000 cuts). That is also why I worked with non-professional actors and based my story on real events.
What makes your film so Iranian despite its location?
If I was not from Iran, I could not have made this movie. Yet, if I was not from New-York, I could not have made this movie. (...) The Persian poet Rumi says, 'Where have I come from? Why was I brought here? Where am I going? In the end, you have not shown me my home.
Bénédicte Prot
www.cineuropa.org
In the photogallery, pictures by Michele Lamanna
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ramin bahrani |
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