Dealing with the busy hub bub of the city, it's easy not to give a second thought to the backstory of the guy making your coffee each morning. But for local director, Ramin Bahrani it's the people like push cart vendors which most strongly inhabit his version of New York City. In his first feature film, Man Push Cart, a lovely character driven drama which hits theaters today, Bahrani gives us a glimpse into the life of Ahmad (newcomer Ahmad Razvi), a widowed, former Pakistani pop star who's trying to scrape together a living with coffee and donuts. Things begin to look up when Ahmad meets Noemi (Leticia Dolera), a Spanish girl running a nearby newsstand but only if he can figure out a way to keep it together. Gothamist recently chatted with Bahrani about fiction films that look like documentaries, how to make subtly political movies and the charm of a 1 a.m. visit to Night Court.
How did you become interested in making a film about push cart vendors in New York?
I had gone to Iran in September to make my first film there when 9/11 happened. Bush began to bomb Afghanistan, and it made me think about the Afghans I knew who lived outside of Iran who were push cart vendors in New York. I thought this would be a good subject for a film. Immediately I thought of Albert Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus, which has always been a very influential book on me growing up. I thought that the push cart vendor dragging his cart up the streets of New York would be a modern version of that myth and that image alone would be enough to base a film around. So I came back to New York in 2002 and began to do research on the project. I spent a lot of time with push cart vendors and exploring neighborhoods where they lived. One of them was Midwood, Brooklyn, which is where Ahmad (Razvi) was from. I walked into his family’s sweet shop and he served me a tea and a pastry and we started talking. I learned he’d been a push cart vendor for about two years, 8 or 9 years prior to meeting him. There was something very captivating about him. He’s very photogenic, very charming. We spent about one or two years becoming friends, and I began to rewrite my character based on him. He kind of matched what I had written, but I began changing it more and more, based on things I knew about his life.
Can you talk a bit about the character of Mohammad (Charles Daniel Sandoval), the Pakistani banker working in Midtown, who also befriends Ahmad. He's sort of like an entree for the audience into Ahmad's world and he seems to want to make Ahmad's life better, in a sort of naive way.
Mohammad is like a lot of people you meet in New York, because they kind of want to help. They talk a lot but in the end, sometimes, all their talk isn’t quite real. It’s like all the chit chat in bars. It kind of goes along with the fact that Ahmad doesn’t talk much in the film, but when he does, he really means what he says. I don’t think Mohammad is a bad guy, he does manage to do some things for Ahmad which he promised and Ahmad kind of messes them in his own way. But he also kind of humiliates Ahmad and looks down on him in a condescending way, which I think is really normal. I think Ahmad really wants to be anonymous in New York. Even though a part of him wants to come out of that, but another part of him doesn’t allow it. This is this contradiction we have as people, and I think this is a part of what this film is about.
This idea about wanting to be anonymous in New York is an interesting one. So many stories about coming to New York are about trying break out or be the next big thing. It’s interesting you wanted to make a movie with a character who wants to blend in.
He wants both and he’s trapped between them. He’s kind of excited by the idea that someone would recognize him [as a Pakistani pop star] but he’s also terrified by it. This is a very New York feeling and it’s a sensation you might see in, for example, Taxi Driver. It has that feeling as well, where he sabotages his own life.
Tell me a little bit about your process of shooting on the streets of New York, and the crew you used.
First of all, New York is very kind to filmmakers, the film commission makes it very easy to shoot. One of the good things about using a small crew is that no one notices you. This helps with the atmosphere of the film, which feels very real. We don’t block off streets, in fact when people were walking by, we were trying our hardest to keep them going in the frame rather than stop them. Even if you have to do 20 takes because every three takes someone looks in the frame, I’d rather have that and do it again because it gives life to the film. For example in the scene where Ahmad is selling DVDs, most of the people he’s selling to didn’t know we were filming. In one case he was selling DVDs to a guy in a hole getting a delivery. After the third take, a guy walked up to make that delivery and he didn’t see the camera so I quickly motioned for Ahmad to begin. Suddenly the guy turns around and he gets into the film and asking "How much? I get my porno for $4 in the Bronx, on Fordham Road." The guy didn’t know we were filming. He made a great scene and he told me where to get cheap porno, so he saved me a lot of money for the film.
Then would you have to chase people down who had walked into the frame to get them to sign permissions?
If they just walked into the frame it didn’t matter but for instance that guy, he turned to look at Ahmad walking away and down the street he sees the camera and Michael Simmonds, the cameraman, which is when he said, What’s going on here? That's when I got him to sign a release.
Did you get a lot people coming up to the stand thinking they could buy a real coffee?
Yeah, we had to chase people down the street, not because I wanted to get the release form, but more because they just bought a donut that was six days old. One time someone came up to the cart and he ordered a coffee but that day we weren’t making coffee, it was just plain hot water. He got it and said, What the fuck’s this? It’s just a bunch of hot water. We explained to him it was a movie. It’s amazing sometimes people really don’t notice the camera because of the small crew. That happened a lot.
It also adds to the feeling that you can’t quite tell if it’s a documentary or a fiction film.
That’s very important to me. The movie I’m doing now in Queens takes place in Williston Park, which is about 20 blocks of auto repair shops and junk yards and things like that. The lead character in the movie, the 12 year old boy—who like Ahmed is in every frame of the film—for 6 months before filming I got him a job there. His boss ended up playing up the boss in the movie. So a lot of the people there thought I was coming to make a documentary about this boy who works in a shop. I think this is a very interesting confusion. I think in my next film, you’ll think it’s a documentary all the way to the end.
Because you’re striving for so much realness in your films, do you think there’s an aspect of them that’s political? Or do you hope that they will spark people to think about immigrants and immigrant life in New York?
I think it’s impossible for things not to be interpreted somehow politically. Personally, I don’t like to highlight things that are already right there. If I tell you I’m making a movie about a Pakistani push cart vendor after 9/11, it’s impossible that someone wouldn’t want to say, How is it political? How does it depict the troubles, etc, etc. Of course that’s going to happen. So I didn’t want to highlight them in the film, they’re just bubbling under the surface. Like the scene in the bar where they’re talking to the guy who’s been stabbed and called a terrorist and what not. That’s a real guy that I’ve known for a couple of years and I put him in the scene. I was very careful about the reactions of the people around him what it would be, I mean they’re trying to use him to pick up women. I wanted to give them the complex feelings they had, not "This is awful." That’s not exactly the situation.
Isn’t there a story also about you being called a terrorist and chased down the street?
On six occasions, Ahmad and I were called terrorists, while we were filming. I guess a Pakistani guy with a beard and a gas tank is really scary to people. One time, it was 2 in the morning on 54th and Madison, we were filming with a crew and a light and everything, Ahmad arranging donuts in his cart. Someone walked by and said, Are you funding a Bin Laden training camp? I have the footage, he walked right by the frame. I guess people really think Bin Laden is desperate, if he’s going to make his money from coffee and donuts.
Finally, what would be an ideal night out for you in New York, if you weren’t shooting someone arranging donuts at 2 a.m.?
I think a very good night that people can have in New York that’s a bit different, is at my favorite Thai restaurant in Chinatown called Pongsri. This is very specific because there’s one in midtown and another on the East side in the 20s, but the one in Chinatown is the very good one. That’s again a very New York thing, you have to know exactly which location is acceptable. Then you can walk across the street and go to Night Court. You can just sit there and watch the very strange people who come in at 1 am on a Friday to Night Court. Junkies, transvestites, crazy people. If anything strange has happened that night, they’re all coming into Night Court. It makes for a very good first date, especially if you have no money.
A very cheap date. Well, it's a great movie, I really enjoyed it.
I really hope New Yorkers are going to see the movie, because I hoped they'd look at it and say, This is the New York I live in. As opposed to the movies that come out that don’t resemble at all the city I’m living in. When I’m filming, I never say "action" because action means end reality, begin filming and "cut" means, cut acting and welcome back to reality. For me, it’s the opposite. I don’t want reality to end.
