Ramin Bahrani, Goodbye Solo

He is hardly a household word but, like Jim Jarmusch - another true
American independent -, Ramin Bahrani is able to film his movies his way, making works of cinema like no one else.
With his debut, the sorrowful, Manhattan-based Man Push Cart, and then the Queens-set Chop Shop, Bahrani created a unique filmic landscape by defamiliarizing and reinventing iconic New York neighborhoods. But in Goodbye Solo, which was inspired by the teachings of St. Francis of Assisi, Bahrani returned to the town where he grew up, Winston-Salem, N.C., to tell a story
about an elderly Southerner (played by Red West, a man famous for his
relationship with Elvis Presley who, only now after 50 years in films,
has his first starring role) who hires a Senegalese taxi driver (Souleymane Sy Savane) to
drive him to the local landmark, the Blowing Rock (26 minutes).

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