Chop Shop

Ramin Bahrani shot this among the auto body shops of Willets Point in Queens, the stretch locals call the Iron Triangle, in the shadow of a baseball stadium. Twelve year old Ale lives and works there. He pulls in customers, hauls parts, sells bootleg DVDs on the street and saves with his older sister toward a food van of their own. Alejandro Polanco and Isamar Gonzales had never acted before. Bahrani listened for lines they improvised in rehearsal and folded them into the finished scenes, which is why almost nothing here sounds written. The film premiered in the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes in 2007. Its honesty is also its difficulty. No one rescues Ale, no one delivers a lesson, and the ending resolves nothing. The moment he works out how his sister is earning money passes in a single look, with no music to underline it. Who it is for: people who want social realism without emotional bullying. Who it is not for: anyone expecting an uplifting child hero story.