Goodbye Solo

deeper than you expect
We saw this movie when it played locally. I was intrigued after reading Roger Ebert's thoughtful and enthusiastic supporting review after it played at Sundance. The two main actors, a cab driver from Senegal and a old, cantankerous man enter into a bargain that takes some time (think suspense)to unfold. Wonderful character development and gritty but good low light cinematography (in North Carolina) work really well in holding the audience... wondering which way each character will go. It's about lost and found dreams, unexpected kindness, and how some people need to control their destiny. Makes me want to go back to NC to see the countryside I missed.

The cost of friendship
Though it owes a major debt to "Taste of Cherry," which the director has openly acknowledged, Bahrani's third feature is another impressive piece of work. It's better than "Chop Shop," which mostly succeeded on the strength of its atmosphere despite its failure to offer a satisfying ending, and almost up there with "Man Push Cart," his amazing first feature. Again, one of Bahrani's constant themes, the immigrant experience in the "land of opportunity," is a constant. But the center of the film is the brief but intense relationship of a Senegalese taxi driver in Winston-Salem, NC, and a gruff, alienated old man who seems to be preparing for a mountain-top suicide. Youth and hope versus old age and disappointment, the American dream vs. its failure; family love versus family dissolution, the joy of friendship versus its price, trying to change life versus accepting what is are all deftly woven through the narrative. Like Kelly Reichart ("Old Joy," "Wendy and Lucy"), Bahrani tells us...

Taxi . . .
Such a fine film, made from the simplest story elements and relying on the performances of two remarkable actors, Souleymane Sy Savane (as Solo) and Red West (as William). Set in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the film is clear from the first scene that one of the characters intends to commit suicide. Although they are strangers, the other man, a Senegalese cab driver, intends to prevent that from happening. Like a well-written short story, that simple premise is the taut thread that runs through this film to its end.

Firm believers in less-is-more, the filmmakers report in the commentary that only the actors playing the two central characters knew what the film was about. Around them are characters oblivious to what's at stake and being played by performers whose performances are thus wonderfully natural. Diana Franco Galindo is especially affecting as the young step-daughter of Solo. Just as fine for this reviewer as director Ramin Bahrani's "Chop Shop" and "Man Push...

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