Chop Shop (Ramin Bahrani, 2007)
Alejandro Polanco in Chop Shop
Cast: Alejandro Polanco, Isamar Gonzales, Rob Sowulski, Carlos Zapata, Ahmad Razvi, Anthony Felton, Evelisse "Lilah" Ortiz, Michael "Gringo" Nieto, Carlos Ayala, Laura Patalano, Nick Jasprizza. Screenplay: Bahareh Azimi, Ramin Bahrani. Cinematography: Michael Simmonds. Production design: Richard A. Wright. Film editing: Ramin Bahrani. Music: M. Lo.
Ramin Bahrani's docufictional Chop Shop takes us into a subterranean segment of American life, viewing it through a 12-year-old boy named Alejandro, played by 12-year-old Alejandro Polanco. Ale, as he's called, is a school dropout whose only known family is his older sister, Isamar (Isamar Gonzales), who comes to live with him in a garage adjacent to an auto-repair shop in the Willets Point area of Queens, near Citi Field, the home of the New York Mets. It's a run-down area where no one but a handful of off-the-grid types like Ale and his sister live, but it comes to life during the day when the auto parts, repair shops, and junkyards are busy. "Urban blight" at its unloveliest. But there's nothing blighted about Ale, who has dreams and hustles to make them real. Even though the plot of the film demands that Ale's dreams don't come true, Bahrani and his remarkable cast of non-professionals give this story of human survivors heart and soul without compromise or sentimentality.
