“This is America and whatever I want to do, I will,” insists Pakistani immigrant Ahmad (Ahmad Ravzi). In his home country he’d been a popular singer (“The Bono of Lahore”). Now a widower estranged from his young son, he ekes out a living selling coffee and pastries from a pushcart in post-9/11 Manhattan. Will meeting Mohammad (Charles Daniel Sandoval), a banker with music industry contacts, and Noemi (Leticia Dolera), an attractive Catalan woman working at a newsstand, change his fortunes?
Inspired by Camus’ The Myth Of Sisyphus, writer/director Ramin Bahrani’s Man Push Cart is a spare yet affecting study of loneliness and resilience, zeroing in on the protagonist’s gruelling daily routine - And despite his micro-budget, Bahrani is a skilful, visual storyteller, shooting and framing the isolated Ahmad in ways that reinforce the theme of confinement.
