Film - Think

I really like Chop Shop for a few reasons:

1. It uses the kind of verité camerawork we associate with international cinema in an American context. I like the way this destabilizes our perception of the film’s setting – the frequent sound of cheering from nearby Shea Stadium our only point of reference to Queens. Otherwise the tangle of hubcaps and radiators of this Willets Point auto bazaar becomes part of a global storyline through Bahrani’s style.
2. The two lead characters are entrancing in the way non-professionals can be when filmed well. There are some spots in which Alejandro achieves the rhythm of neo-realism, and gives Chop Shop the kind of natural momentum more traditional approaches to narrative strip from their scripts.
3. It doesn’t sentimentalize the lower-class New York City grind. I am not sure that transposing the Iranian New Wave to an American setting will have the same revelatory effect, but why not give it a shot?

But I also don’t like it for a few reasons:

1. It uses the kind of verité camerawork we associate with social awareness (especially in relation to the most often cited comparisons to Bahrani’s two films - the Dardennes, Makhmalbaf, and Kairostami) without seeming to lead to a discernable social critique. This is not to say that verité cinema always has to be wedded to a symbolic or moral motivation to be effective, e.g. Le Mistons and Le boulangere de Monceau. But cinema verité that monopolizes on the immediate narrative potential of third-world environments like Willets Point, Queens should lead to some more substantive social reflection than can be found in Chop Shop, otherwise it really isn’t that verité.
2. While Chop Shop is pretty loose, there is also a lot of absent backstory. So all these adults just let Alejandro and his sister fend for themselves? I hope I am just naïve.
3. It doesn’t sentimentalize what it is like to be poor in America, but it also skips over quite a bit of its difficulty. As Alejandro is such an intriguing little figure, the film is at times a bit more charming than it should be.