GOODBYE, SOLO (Ramin Bahrani 2008)

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Ramin Bahrani: Goodbye, Solo (2008)

Also published on Cinescene.

Bringing it all back home

Review by Chris Knipp

This third feature from Iranian-descent North Carolinian Bahrani takes a theme from Abbas Kiarostami's The Taste of Cherries, of a man seeking a driver to help him commit suicide, and makes it as American and Edward Hopper as night movie ticket windows, sleazy motel rooms, roadhouses, cabs on call, and fractured families. Bahrani's surefooted story blends elements of Kafkaesque nightmare and shaggy dog story and, though well grounded in realistic, no-nonsense images and everyday settings, is also surrounded in mystery. What's behind this plan of William (Red West) to be driven from Winston-Salem to the windy heights of Blowing Rock? We only know that he has some sketchy relationship to a boy selling tickets at a movie theater, has sold his house, and then, helped by the cab driver, grimly moves into a cheap motel room with a few belongings.

For a driver, William has somehow gotten saddled with Solo (Souleymane Sy Savane), a friendly and garrulous Senegalese with a Mexican wife, Quiera (Carmen Leyva), and a clever little stepdaughter, Alex (Diana Franco Galindo. Quiera is pregnant with Solo's child, but they are at odds over his plan to become a flight attendant, and Solo seems half in and half out of the house. From the evening when William gives him a hundred dollars as advance on a $1,000 payment to take him to Blowing Rock on a set day, which he strongly suspects is to do away with himself, Solo refuses to let the gruff old man alone. He takes William out to play pool and drink and then sleep it off at his house. When his wife objects he moves into William's motel room for a while. He makes sure no other drivers from the W.C.C. cab company pick up William. William is trying to shut down, but Solo won't let him.

After a while you realize the focus is not so much on what will happen to William as what will happen to Solo, that Solo's situation is shaky, mysterious, and perhaps desperate, and that you're not going to find any ultimate answers about either of the two men who are now so oddly conjoined. The key to the story is the story, and Bahrani makes excellent use of the inner and outer nature of his two principals and their checkered careers. Red West was a Marine, stuntman, and boxer, and later a bodyguard for Elvis Presley, and his face has a John Ford cowboy hero's weathered graininess. When he lights a cig and stares into space it's no act. Sy Savane is a one-time fashion model and African TV star and a Winston-Salem cab driver who was a flight attendant for an African airline. He knows the answers to the flight attendant exam Solo's studying for, except that Solo fails the interview. He is athletic and handsome and the radiance of his smile suffuses his whole face. But for all his confidence there's a sense that Solo is dodging about the edges of Winston-Salem because he has friends on the dark side, but he's still an outsider. Bahrani's previous Chop Shop focused on Latino kids eeking out a living amid the competing de facto car parts dealers in the Iron Triangle of Willets Point, Queens. Here he takes it all back home, because North Carolina is where he grew up, even if he felt like an outsider. Goodbye, Solo feels more securely grounded but also more open--an impression visually underlined when Solo drives Alex and William out into the softly multicolored mountainsides around Blowing Rock.

The virtue of the film is that it focuses so simply and wholeheartedly on its actors and their characters. There is no quirky Jim Jarmusch wit in the taxicab scenes, never any loss of focus on the confused urgency of Solo's and William's divergent quests. The conclusion may leave you feeling lost in uncertainty amid the fog and whirling winds of Blowing Rock. There's nothing particularly neat or tidy about this ending. But the whole movie is worth the long look William and Solo give each other before they part for the last time. This moment more than the rest of the movie conveys a sense of Bahrani's attention and curiosity--which come with a healthy awareness that he hasn't got the answers, but he has got a grip on some of the big questions by now. Though he gives us only a piece of the puzzle, his interest in new immigrants is admirably free of indie cuteness or dramatic flourishes, and the whole movie is edited with a sure and classic touch that makes this feel like the second great American movie of the year about real people, after James Gray's Two Lovers.

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On the limited release schedule, O'Hehir of Salon says: "Now playing in New York and Chicago. Opens April 3 in Madison, Wis.; April 10 in Los Angeles; April 17 in Boston and San Francisco [also Berkeley, where I saw it on opening day]; April 24 in San Diego; April 29 in Seattle; May 1 in Minneapolis; May 8 in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington, Charlotte, N.C., and Austin, Texas; and May 15 in Atlanta, Memphis, Portland, Ore., and St. Louis, with other cities to follow."

The Ending of Goodbye Solo
by Oscar Jubis



In a few short years, Ramin Bahrani has become the most celebrated young American film director. With only three features under his belt, he has already been the subject of retrospectives at Harvard Film Archives and New York’s prestigious M.O.M.A. Our most widely-read film critic, Roger Ebert, calls Bahrani "the new great American director" on the strength of Man Push Cart, Chop Shop, and Goodbye Solo. These films bring to fruition Bahrani's project to dramatize the lives of people normally found at the margins of fictional cinema, if they are to be found there at all. The three features have garnered numerous awards at film festivals worldwide. There are several factors that account for Bahrani's deserved recognition as a great filmmaker.

The North Carolinian director has an uncanny ability to train non-actors and mold their performances and, in the case of Goodbye Solo, give veteran bit player Red West the role he has been waiting all his life to play. Another significant factor is how these films strike the perfect balance between what to reveal and what to leave unsaid, between clarity and ambiguity. Without denying the effect of the characters' pasts on who they are today, these films are grounded on the here-and-now. After all, the people we meet in life don’t come equipped with flashbacks that clarify the mystery of their existence and explain their actions. The same is true of Bahrani's characters. For instance, there is only a brief suggestion as to how Chop Shop's Ale and Isa became virtual orphans. The lives Solo and Ahmad, the Pakistani bagel vendor in Man Push Cart, led in their native countries are vaguely mentioned. And we know as little about William's past as Solo manages to literally wrestle away from him. One might say that the director and his scriptwriting partner Bahareh Azimi respect William’s wish and stay the bleep out of his life. Only William knows the identity and significance of the mother of the young man selling tickets at the Marketplace $2 Cinemas. We'll never know if he is being truthful when he says he had no kids with the wife who left him 30 years ago. And we will never know why he wants to die. Bahrani's films never betray the belief that humans are beings whose complexity cannot be reduced to a few character traits and that our actions are motivated by a multiplicity of subjective and environmental factors.

No, we will never know why William wants to jump off the top of Blowing Rock, a cliff in the Blue Ridge Mountains that gained notoriety because the walls of the gorge below form a flume through which strong winds return light objects cast over the void. According to legend, the Great Spirit answered the prayers of a Chickasaw maiden and the northwest winds returned her despondent lover, who had jumped off. When Solo gravely looks out from the observation tower or stands at the mountain peak, does he plead to a higher power to bring William back? It is up to the viewer to use his imagination to give a voice to Solo's silence.

Perhaps what I love most about Bahrani's films are their endings. Near the conclusion of Man Push Cart, Ahmad's friend Mohammed betrays a promise to help him resurrect his singing career and woos the sweet Latina Ahmad covets. Then Ahmad's cart gets stolen. All the money he had invested towards buying it out goes to waste. He must start again like the mythical Sisyphus endlessly pushing the rock up the mountain. But Ahmad's expression at the end the film does not register despair. Bahrani's modern update of the ancient Greek tale is informed by Albert Camus' essay, which regards Sisyphus' plight not as a godly punishment but as exemplary of the absurdity and futility that characterizes the lives of most people. Ahmad and Solo take this in stride. Bahrani and Camus, who concludes his essay with the line: "All is well. One must imagine Sisyphus happy," bestow dignity and admiration on men who endure and persevere. One senses that Solo's dream of becoming a flight attendant will not be derailed by his wife's attempts to change his mind or by his failing a test. Regardless of the result, Ahmad and Solo are ennobled by their unwavering pursuits. They are actively engaged in the process of becoming. Even if they never heard of it, they subscribe to Martin Luther's famous pronouncement: "Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree."

At the conclusion of Chop Shop, Ale solicits assistance from a flock of pigeons to put a smile on his sister’s face and heal the rift between them. It is as if the forces of nature are squarely on the side of brotherly love. A similar cosmic alignment occurs in Goodbye Solo. Is it too romantic to think that the trees along Highway 312 burst into the full spectrum of autumn colors to remind William of the beauty of the world he wants to leave? Do the mist and fog shroud the peak so that William can have the privacy he demands during his final moment? What seems clear to me is that over the course of ten days William develops a familial affection towards Solo and his stepdaughter Alex. And that there are no words that could possibly convey the depth of those feelings as eloquently and sincerely as the sustained gaze exchanged between the men at the bottom of the trail that leads to Blowing Rock.

When you think the film is over, Bahrani and his collaborators provide the perfect denouement. Alex quizzes Solo on the steps to follow during a flight emergency. It is then that the viewer fully realizes that Goodbye Solo has allegorically linked a flight attendant’s prescribed course of action during a crisis and the challenges that William's death wish pose for Solo. The gregarious Senegalese has effectively managed to erect a barrier between William and his suicidal plans. I figure he brings Alex along not only to keep him company during the return to Winston-Salem but also as a last ditch effort to dissuade William. And Solo's incessant exploration of the possible motives behind William's suicidal ideation is akin to a flight attendant "checking the conditions". When William corrects Solo's pronunciation of "redirect", does he realize Solo is adamantly engaged in trying to redirect his life?

No visual proof is provided but I think William died that 20th of October. This does not devalue Solo's performance under extreme conditions. Solo passed a test much more daunting and meaningful than the one he failed.

This is an interesting piece, it's valuable that you relate Bahrani's three films, and I got something out of your remarks about mystery of characters and endings. I'm not as impressed by the ending of Chop Shop, but the ending of Goodbye, Solo certainly is extremely memorable and in a sense makes the film. It sends you out moved and impressed. You don't say much about the specific texture of Goodbye, Solo, details about Blowing Rock notwithstanding. As for Ebert's remark "the great new Aemrican director," that kind of title blows away in the wind and could be the kiss of death as much as a pathway to greatness. There are plenty of other great young American directors, who maybe now are not as new or as great as they once were, such as Tarantino, Fincher, Wes Anderson, P.T. Anderson, Sofia Coppola, Charlie Kaufman, James Gray and others who have gained status as auteurs. I hope Bahrani doesn't fade as the once great young American director David Gordon Green has since several recent films have failed to live up to his earlier promise. In the case of Bahrani I will say that Goodbye, Solo is good evidence of continued merit and originality, working on a far more modest more "indie" scale that those others just named, and perhaps, if his statements are to be believed, determiend to remain that way.

We do know something about Bahrani's characters, and that's something mentioned by Ebert in the article you allude to: they're outsiders.

Another article I've come across in the Independent (London) lists other promising young American dirrectors, including Bahrani and David Gordon Green:

Lynn Shelton (Humpday, coming to theaters)
Ben and Joshua Safdie
Ryan Fleck (Half Nelson, Sugar)
Emily Abt (All of Us, Toe to Toe)
Miranda July (Me and You and Everyone...etc.)
Barry Jenkins (Medicine for Melancholy)
Alex Holdridge (In Search of a Midnight Kiss)
Matt Bissonnette (Passenger Side, coming)

Lance Hammer (Ballast) might also be mentioned. I've had reservations about Fleck and July but liked Jenkins' film. And then there's the Mublecore group, from which something of real note may yet emerge.

I'm glad you found my essay interesting and valuable. Thanks.
As far as I'm concerned, only Fleck/Boden may belong in the company of Bahrani. Half Nelson was my favorite English-language film of 2007. I decided to wait for Sugar to play at the Cosford, the University of Miami theater where I am currently working. The projector and the projectionist are top notch, better than what you find at the local multiplex where Sugar played a couple of months ago. We'll screen it in a couple of weeks. The only D.G. Green film that comes close is George Washington. That film came out 9 years ago. If I like Sugar as much as Half Nelson, then I'd have to hail Fleck/Boden as Bahrani's equals. I also loved Gondry/Kaufman's Eternal Sunshine but the films they've been associated with since then don't quite measure up to that high standard.

I guess it bears repeating that I consider the ending of Chop Shop almost miraculous. That scene required a special synchronicity between DP Michael Simmonds (with camera perched on his shoulder), two kids who had never acted before, and a flock of pigeons. It's a beautifully executed long take that conveys so much meaning and depth of feeling it literally took my breath away. It's been a looong time since an American director delivered back-to-back masterpieces of the caliber of Chop Shop and Goodbye Solo in consecutive years. And Bahrani's previous film, Man Push Cart is damn good too.

I don't mean to belittle the films of Gray, S. Coppola and a couple others mentioned in your two posts. Bahrani seems to me to be at a whole other level.

Of course you'dve done some careful thinking about Bahrani and have interesting things to say. I agree on Eternal Sunshine. As you may recall I have had reservations about Half Nelson all along. That's not to sey Fleck doesn't deserve inclusion here, only that he does not stand out as uniquely qualified of New great American filmmaker status, which I also am doubtful Bahrani uniquely deserves. I haven't gotten the opportunity to see Fleck's Sugar, which has been very well reviewed. I'd have to see it. I'm not convinced David Gordon Green's only worthy effort is George Washington; in fact I've liked subsequent ones better, but he has failed to convince that he's a unique talent or that he is improving. Bahrani's sense of region and focus on outsiders with non-actors points toward a consistent kind of craft. The ending of Chop Shop didn't do it for me, despite the luck cimatography. I don't think Chop Shop and Goodbye, Solo are back-to-back masterpieces. I consider Goodbye, Solo a considerable improvement. And I don't think Bahrani is on a whole other level from Sofia Coppola or James Gray and certainly not to be ranked above Paul Thomas Anderson. That would be quite excessive. These are some ways that we differ. But Goodby, Solo is a fine film. I would not differ from you in rating it highly. I just don't think it makes Bahrani king of the hill as a younger American director. As I've said, I think for sure the three best Americdan films of the year thus far revealed are unquestionably Two Lovers, Goodbye, Solo, and The Limits of Control.

Cool.
I think we both must see Sugar.
I do like Two Lovers, but a bit less than you.
I plan to watch the new Jarmusch, of course. As you know, I think as highly of his Dead Man as you do, even though a couple of brief scenes of extreme, gratuitous violence never fail to "rub me the wrong way". Rosenbaum's book on the film (written at the behest of the BFI) is quite good.
I am a bit reluctant to rank this year's films so early because then the posting of 2009 lists becomes anti-climactic and because it's only over the course of repeat viewings that films prove their mettle.

I'm not ranking this year's films. I just knew when I saw each of those three that it was going to be one of my favorites for 2009, that's all. I'm happy about Tetro too; I'm glad that Coppola made something so much more warm and appealing than Youth Without Youth. I can see what you mean about anti-climax, but so it goes sometimes, it becomes not an intellectual but a visceral decision.

Often you know the first time that you watch a movie that it is something special , but not always. For me, it's the repeat viewings that are crucial. I've seen SUGAR now...three times, which didn't get a comment from you. In my opinion there are very few films so far this year that one wouldn't want to miss under any circumstances and Fleck/Boden's second film is just that. Just giving you the heads up. It's almost as good as GOODBYE SOLO.

Have not seen. No DVD yet, but I put it on Netlix queue. Probably THE HURT LOCKER would move into the preferred list, for the summer.

Cool.
Regarding The Hurt Locker, you can figure based on my essay and the reviews of the film that, from all the highly praised films of the year, Bigelow's is the one I like least. I don't hate it at all thugh. I do hate the latest from Woody Allen but Allen's film did not get many good reviews in the US. Bigelow's will get one of the 10!!! Oscar nominations for Best Picture.

On Metacritic, HURT LOCKER: 93, WHATEVER WORKS: 45.

I agree with you in feeling dissatisfied with HURT LOCKER, and in my review I recorded walking out feeling empty but it's a somewhat odd case, because it's still unusually impressive and that's clear as soon as Sgt. James comes on the scene.

GOODBYE SOLO, my favorite American movie of 2009, will be shown on PBS tonight at 10 p.m. (EST) as part of the Independent Lense series.

By the way, where is everybody? Barely any posts in the past few days...

I'm here.

I like Gray's TWO LOVERS equally; they both came early in the year. I also have a lot of time for A SERIOUS MAN and THE LIMITS OF CONTROL, and there are others.

I've been listening to the tapes of Truffaut's interviews with Hitchcock, which are available online in 25 installments. Richard Brody linked to them on his New Yorker blog but they are found on Tom Sutpen's (and others') blog, "If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There Would Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats."