This is excellent. Ahmad (Ahmad Razvi) is a Pakistani immigrant with a hard life. He's frustrated and rarely cracks a smile, despite meeting people who want to befriend and help him. The movie won a bunch of awards for writer/director Ramin Bahrani (he followed it with the wonderful Chop Shop and Goodbye Solo--I haven't seen his other one) and for Razvi. Cinematographer Michael Simmonds was nominated for Independent Spirit Awards for both Chop Shop and this, most deservedly. One warning, though: Get your room as dark as you can, because there are several very dark night shots of Ahmad pushing his cart through Manhattan before dawn. But the ones with city lights and daylight are spectacular. Also, there are no closed captions available on the DVD, so I, with my slightly impaired hearing, needed the sound turned way up.
Earlier that evening Jack and I watched an old Simpsons episode from 1997 where Homer's car was borrowed and abandoned between the World Trade Towers (here's the whole episode from a Dutch website). That silliness was a companion piece to this serious story. The movie soundtrack is by Peyman Yazdanian. I couldn't find a link to listen to his work on the movie, but from this one you can preview tracks from some of his other albums.
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