The new America

Movie #3: Goodbye Solo
Directed by Ramin Bahrani; Written by Ramin Bahrani & Bahareh Azimi

Touted by Roger Ebert as the "new great American director", Ramin Bahrani, director of 2005's "Man Push Cart" and the more recent "Goodbye Solo", must be flying pretty high right now. After only five movies under his belt (according to imdb.com), Bahrani has obviously impressed critics with his films about the immigrant and minority experience in America. Ebert calls "Goodbye Solo" a "masterwork." While I liked the film, my review is not quite as glowing as Ebert's.

Set in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the film follows a black, Senegal-born cab driver named Souleymane (Solo, for short) and William, an old man with reddish-blonde hair and a face that more than shows the traces of a life lived. One day, William gets into Solo's cab and makes him a deal: he'll give Solo a large sum of money to drive him one-way to Blowing Rock, a place where it's so windy, the snow appears to be falling backwards. Solo seems almost immediately concerned with why William wants to go to Blowing Rock and never come back. The entire film hinges on Solo's concern for William and his obsession with figuring out why someone would want to turn his back on life. One thing is for sure- Solo is one of the most compassionate characters I've seen on screen in a long time, and William, one of the most enigmatic.

The opening scene is one of the best things about this movie. Unlike mainstream Hollywood movies that open with a long line of credits moving to the rhythm of a Top-40 hit, "Goodbye Solo" opens mid-scene, the two main characters already engaged in conversation as they sit in Solo's cab. No pretense, music, or credits- just dialogue which provides exposition and character development at the same time. Not enough movies utilize this device. Perhaps writers and directors don't think their audiences are smart enough to figure out what's going on without some ultra-obvious montage at the beginning of a movie. This movie's opening scene reminded me of a play- spare and efficient, not in a way that's trying to make a statement (like the set of Lars Von Trier's "Dogville," for example), but in a way that best serves the story.

Solo has been driving cabs for three years and is ready for a change. He has taken his flight attendant exam at least once, but he keeps getting rejected. Solo seems to have little problem learning the material, and the viewer is ever so gently led to believe that perhaps discrimination plays a role in his not getting hired. Solo is married to Quiera, a Mexican-American woman pregnant with his child who also has a young daughter named Alex from a previous relationship. Solo and Alex have a wonderful relationship- he relates to her somewhere between a father and a friend. Solo is joyful, open-hearted, talkative, but he is not naive. He's got layers. Anyone watching him from the outside would think that Solo's got it pretty good- a wife, a beautiful step-daughter, a house, and a job, but things aren't so rosy on the inside. Quiera wants him to stick with driving the cab- they've got a new baby on the way, and she expects more from him than what he's currently giving. Solo doesn't see it this way. He's in pursuit of more happiness even if that means disappointing his family in the process. The viewer isn't provided with Solo's back story- what his life was life in Senegal, etc. and perhaps that's for the better.

William is Solo's opposite. He is tight-lipped, stoic, closed-off. One can tell just by looking at him that he was at one time a major bad-ass. Even Solo refers to him as "an original player" when he sees the tattoo on William's bicep and learns that he used to ride a motorcycle. As with Solo, the viewer is given no real back story on William. He tells Solo that his wife left him 30 years ago and that he has no children, but these statements come into question later in the film, and William remains an enigma to the end. All we know is that he is wounded inside, probably by something pretty big. Solo is intuitive enough to immediately sense William's pain, and for some reason, he becomes obsessed with saving him.

Bahrani provides us with characters who are America's outsiders: the immigrant, the Mexican, the old man. Those of us who live in less integrated places wouldn't expect these people to inter-mingle in real life. However, it's obvious that Bahrani strives to exceed stereotypes and focus instead on humanity. What's interesting about Solo is that he's equally comfortable in the company of white William as he is with his black, native Winston-Salem friends and his African immigrant friends. Is Solo the exception or the rule? Is Winston-Salem a model for the new America in terms of cross-culturalism? Is Bahrani looking at identity from within rather than from the outside? Or is this some kind of world that Bahrani only wishes exists? Bahrani is native to Winston-Salem, so I won't make any assumptions other than to say that this is a location Bahrani knows well and perhaps wishes were more akin to the place he creates in the movie.

Maybe I'm being cynical in questioning the reality of the relationships in this movie. It's not like Solo and William become best-buds- there is always a lack of trust on William's part. However, the extent to which William lets Solo in, no matter how small, seems unrealistic at times.

What I appreciate most about this movie is that it's a non-traditional love story. It is rare that we see films focusing on male friendship and all that can be revealed between male friends without a word spoken. We've all seen the films where boy wants girl, boy gets girl, and boy loses girl. This film is framed in much the same way... it's as if Solo and William engage in a short-lived love affair full of mystery, obsession, secrets revealed and of course, a bittersweet ending.

This is Solo's movie, and for sure an acting triumph on the part of Souleymane Sy Savane in only his second film. The viewer realizes that this is only the beginning of truths learned for Solo, that for all the hope America represents for him, there are plenty of sad, cynical stories to be found beneath its glossy veneer.