Man Push Cart

I watched this movie at the London Film Festival and walked in, in fairness, without very high expectations....in the end these have turned out to be the best couple of hours i spent in front of a movie screen over the last few years. I very much agree with some of the comments which relate this movie to "taxi driver". As the scenes go by there is a growing sense of willingness to continue to fight and try to achieve a peaceful happiness in a restless society like NYC, where trying to establish yourself starting from the very bottom appears an impossible challenge. The movie with a catching simplicity puts the viewer in front of the other new york.....away from wall street success stories or thrilling NYC crime movies, it shows a different angle of the big apple...the story of those which have the strength to face poverty and loneliness with pride, honesty and great determination. I found amazing how the director has been able to express such density of feelings and meanings of life with almost no words and complex dialogues, but simply through a man pushing a cart and talking through his silence.....a fantastic interpretation!!!

And it's New York's loss, not his.

Saw this film this afternoon at Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival. The lead actor, Ahmad Razvi, is not a professional actor, but he holds his own very well. He told the audience after the screening that he had pushed a cart, briefly, but was self-employed when he was discovered by the director behind the counter of his own restaurant. However, in my opinion this is the director's, Ramin Bahrani, and cinematographer's, a guy named Simmons, film.

There is very little plot. It is about shining a light onto the life of one of the street vendors you can buy from in many of our larger cities, and never really think about. He has a story. Some people will be bored with it, but most of the more insightful audience members will never forget what they're so convincingly exposed to here.

This is Bahrani's first film, I believe, and it's certainly an indication of great things to come. He's taken the legend of Sisyphus in this his first outing and transformed it into something we can all relate to. And it's something we need to relate to given our current distrust of Muslims, ex-rock star or not. Somehow, though, I doubt that many working at Homeland Security are likely to see it.

Accurate moviewatching can give you such strong pleasure that, if rightly chosen, the selected film can feed your mind for weeks.

On the other hand, if your choice fails, even thoroughly prepared by selecting critics and seeing previews, the frustration is so high that your first thought is never again a moviewatching, and how can the producer be punished!!

Well, none of this will happen seeeing "Man push Cart"! You are immediately seized by the deeply melancolic poetry of New Yorks' dark street through the night. You strongly feel the solitude and the constant sweetness of the hero, who seems totally submitted to fate whenever it hits him. Is it weakness , or is he very wise? The film, without naming them, speaks of all our present troubles: loss of social, religious and emotional identity> you will carry its delicate atmosphere and all the questions aroused for a long time.

I just came back from a trip to New York and I was reminded of a film I had seen a couple months prior at the London Film Festival, Man Push Cart.

The film so honestly and beautifully captured what New York felt like when I was walking in the bitter cold streets. I had liked the film when I saw it, but walking on the streets I could not get the images out of my head. It had stayed with me since then. The cinematography is really beautiful and the main actor is really, really good. The director said in the Q&A that he is not an actor, but a real push cart vendor. So of course I bought a tea and bagel from one of the vendors and said hello!

The film IS New York, but could just as easily have happened here in London. It made me look at that invisible person who we see all the time around us here in London and that they are people with lives, and dreams. Very sincere and honest.

It is a really good film. I recommend you see it.

I saw the film at the festival Mannheim, and although I wanted to stay some minutes only to get a feeling for the film I eventually stayed until the end. The film has a captivating, almost entrancing rhythm, like a song, always coming back to the lonely refrain-image of the protagonist pushing his cart through NYC. To call it "sad" would be like calling "Taxi Driver" a sad film. Authentic is certainly more appropriate, maybe even wild. Not in matters of dynamics but in terms of consistency. No fear to show things as they are. In real life, people lose their loved ones and can't replace them, they don't kiss potential new loves although they probably should and they can't take care of other beings or give life to their own existence if they are merely a shell of their former self. And who can blame anyone for not doing something that seems to be so easy for one person but is very hard to achieve for somebody else? Brilliant photography and lyrical representations of loneliness in an overcrowded place.