Newcomer Souléymane Sy Savané is Solo, a cab driver from Senegal who is hired by Red West's character, William, for a one-way trip to the North Carolina landmark of Blowing Rock in "Goodbye Solo."
"I'm a very curious person. I like to learn about people's culture."
The words come from the perpetual-motion mouth of a chatty African cab driver in the movie "Goodbye Solo," but they might as well be spoken by his creator.
Video
An interview with Red West and others involved in the making of Goodbye Solo, which opens Friday, May 15, at Malco’s Ridgeway Four. West is best known as a longtime friend of Elvis and key member of the so-called “Memphis Mafia” . Watch »
Newcomer Souléymane Sy Savané is Solo, a cab driver from Senegal who is hired by Red West's character, William, for a one-way trip to the North Carolina landmark of Blowing Rock in "Goodbye Solo."
Goodbye Solo is the story of Solo, a kindhearted 34-year-old Senegalese taxi driver in North Carolina. He is hired by William, a tough 70-year-old white ...
Rating: R for language
Length: 91 minutes
Released: March 27, 2009 NY/Chicago
Cast: Souleymane Sy Savane, Red West, Diana Franco Galindo, Lane 'Roc' Williams, Mamadou Lam
Director: Ramin Bahrani
Writer: Ramin Bahrani, Bahareh Azimi
In "Man Push Cart" (2005), "Chop Shop" (2007) and now "Solo," writer-director Ramin Bahrani -- himself a first-generation American, the son of Iranian immigrants -- has brought a researcher's integrity, an artist's compassion and a detective's eye for the neglected detail to tales of this country's struggling international underclass. These are stories about people on the margins of society who typically are all but invisible on
American movie screens, not because of their race but because of their powerlessness -- their lack of buying power, in particular.
Shot on a small budget in Winston-Salem, N.C., "Goodbye Solo" casts vibrant movie newcomer Souléymane Sy Savané as Solo, a cab driver from Dakar in the West African nation of Senegal who is struggling to make a meaningful New World life with his pregnant Mexican wife, Quiera (Carmen Leyva), and his precocious stepdaughter (Diana Franco Galindo). In Senegal, "Yo, families stay together, man," Solo declares.
Like the Sally Hawkins character in Mike Leigh's "Happy-Go-Lucky," Solo is an apparently indefatigable optimist whose broad smile and aggressively ingratiating manner -- his speech is a torrent of comically clichéd urban slang ("yo," "playa," "chillin'") -- conceal an unacknowledged fear and a sadness born of empathy. He draws on all these characteristics when he decides to befriend a new customer, a tightlipped old man from "the rock-and-roll era" named William (Red West), who hires Solo to be his driver for an upcoming one-way ride to Blowing Rock, a North Carolina landmark so high above sea level that, according to legend, objects thrown from its summit don't fall but are blown up into the sky, into heaven.
Does William plan to jump from the rock? That is Solo's fear, so he becomes William's almost-constant companion, driving him to the movies, taking him out for beers and talking to him about his plans to elevate himself -- literally -- by leaving his cab behind and becoming a flight attendant. (Flight and all it implies -- ascension, escape, freedom, glory, risk -- is a key motif here.)
Like such other regional independent filmmakers as Kelly Reichardt ("Wendy and Lucy," "Old Joy") and such predecessors as David Gordon Green ("George Washington") and Charles Burnett ("Killer of Sheep"), Bahrani imbues the stunning location photography of his film with an almost mystical apprehension, especially during the story's moving final act, when Solo's cab exits the housing projects and ethnic eateries of Winston-Salem for the misty mountains and darkling forests of the Blue Ridge parkland -- haunted landscapes that would have impressed Caspar David Friedrich, and that seem otherworldly and unreal, despite their authenticity.
Indie aesthetic aside, "Goodbye Solo" -- scripted by Bahrani and Bahareh Azimi -- isn't too far removed from the type of social drama-of-understanding that Rod Serling or Paddy Chayevsky might have written for the golden age of television drama. As the story's "unlikely" friendship evolves, we might even think of the many previous films in which an uptight white person is taught to embrace life by a wise or exuberant black person. ("Driving Miss Daisy" -- another tale of a black driver and a white passenger -- is an obvious comparison.)
But "Goodbye Solo" is too singular to be grouped with such pro forma parables, in part because it never acknowledges that William needs saving. Snarly or stoic of demeanor and sculptural in appearance, with a face that might have been whittled from ash, West -- the former Elvis crony and longtime actor, here in his first lead role -- ensures that William never becomes a stereotypically cuddly or avuncular "old-timer" as he copes with age and regret.
Even his signature red hair, streaked with silver, makes one aware of the injustice of time, so the viewer can understand if perhaps not endorse William's mission.
-- John Beifuss: 529-2394
- |
Comments » 0
Be the first to post a comment!
Share your thoughts
Comments are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. Violators may be banned. Click here for our full user agreement.