Catshanghai

Man Push Cart is possibly the scariest film I have seen for quite some time even though there are no scenes of blood or threatening villains.

The film is just a story about a Pakistani immigrant called Ahmad who is struggling with work and life in New York. While most New Yorkers sleep, Ahmad fetches, pushes and pitches his coffee cart around the streets of Manhattan. He is a sad, lonely man trying to get his life back after the death of his wife. Ahmad is a kind and unassuming soul with a simple dream to save enough money for an appartment so he can look after his estranged son, but nothing ever goes his way. He tries to be a good friend to those who intrude upon his life, but he still manages to alienate everyone around him. He rescues a kitten, but foolishly kills it with kindness. He trusts a business associate who rips him off.

In many ways this is a companion piece to last year’s Happyness except it is not given a sentimental Hollywood makeover where heroic struggle is always rewarded with success, romance and dreams that come true. Instead, Man Push Cart has a low key documentary feel that makes it very realistic. Ahmad is wonderfully underplayed. He is a passive victim of life, barely speaking a word as he hides in the sleepless shadows of New York before dawn. Still he is swept along by currents that he can not understand or control.

The film looks to Camus’ remodelling of the Myth of Sisyphus where a man is absurdly condemned to drag a boulder up to the top of a hill only to roll it down before the repeating the process ad infinitum. Ahmad faces a similar fate of pushing his cart around the streets of New York without any prospect that his life will ever improve.

Watching a kind, lonely soul struggle in this way is almost more than the viewer can bare, but you see people like this in every situation. This is what makes Man Push Cart so terrifying and compelling.

More on Man Push Cart
Interview With Ramin Bahrani, Director of Man Push Cart
Man Push Cart on Internet Movie Database (IMDB)