Man Push Cart 2006

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: Ahmad's concerns -- his sadness and his striving -- become universal. Though his early-morning riser's world is gray and threaded with melancholy, it becomes, in the end, a place we recognize. Read more

Logan Hill, New York Magazine/Vulture: Ramin Bahrani's striking debut tracks a Pakistani street-cart vendor with a mysterious past as he pushes his steel box through Manhattan. Read more

Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle: The makers of Man Push Cart seem so dedicated to making a film that defies Hollywood conventions that the finished product lacks enough entertainment value to justify price of admission. Read more

Dennis Lim, Village Voice: Bahrani and his DP Michael Simmonds illuminate the murky beauty -- and hardscrabble economics -- of New York's all-night shadowland. Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: Man Push Cart is a solemn mood piece that hovers somewhere between bittersweet and despairing. Read more

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: It's by no means an exaggeration to describe this quietly powerful film as Bressonian. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Michael Simmond's cinematography, especially in scenes of Ahmad muscling his way amid evening traffic and early-morning delivery trucks, is wonderfully true to the moods of a city that never sleeps and seldom nods at the hard work going on before it. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The writer-director, Ramin Bahrani, is a natural-born filmmaker who captures how the banal physical details of manning a pushcart could come to define a life. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: Synthesizes aspiration, resignation, anonymity, celebrity, opportunity and denial into a portrait of something far beyond the immigrant experience. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: You'll think of him the next time you pass a cart. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Free of contrived melodrama and phony suspense, it ennobles the hard work by which its hero earns his daily bread. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: If one of the things movies are supposed to do is make you look anew at the world around you, you may never see your doughnut vendor in the same way again. Read more

Wally Hammond, Time Out: What begins as a delineation of a man in a landscape becomes a study in sadness and stoicism, disorientation and even desperation, then finally, a delicate, rewarding and cliche-free enquiry into the complex heart of the lone immigrant experience. Read more

Jay Weissberg, Variety: An example of spare, slice-of-life indie cinema at its most unpretentious. Read more

Michael Atkinson, Village Voice: As a rhythmic cry for understanding, Man Push Cart has the simplicity of an Islamic hamd call to prayer. Read more