Directed by Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou • 2004 • United States
Starring Charles Jang, Jeng-Hua Yu, Wang-Thye Lee
The American dream has rarely seemed so far away as in Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou’s raw, vérité TAKE OUT, an immersion in the life of an undocumented Chinese immigrant struggling to get by on the margins of post-9/11 New York City. Facing violent retaliation from a loan shark, restaurant deliveryman Ming Ding has until nightfall to pay back the money he owes, and he encounters both crushing setbacks and moments of unexpected humanity as he races against time to earn enough in tips over the course of a frantic day. From this simple setup, Baker and Tsou fashion a kind of neorealist survival thriller of the everyday, shedding compassionate light on the too often overlooked lives and labor that keep New York running.
Up Next in 21st Century Cinema
-
France
Directed by Bruno Dumont • 2021 • France, Italy
Starring Léa Seydoux, Blanche Gardin, Benjamin BiolayLéa Seydoux brilliantly holds the center of Bruno Dumont’s unexpected, unsettling film, which starts out as a satire of the contemporary news media before steadily spiraling out into something r...
-
Mysterious Object at Noon
Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul • 2000 • Thailand
Starring Duangjai Hiransri, Somsri Pinyopol, Kannikar NarongApichatpong Weerasethakul brought an appetite for experimentation to Thai cinema with his debut feature, an uncategorizable work that refracts documentary impressions of his homel...
-
Porto of My Childhood
Directed by Manoel de Oliveira • 2001 • France, Portugal
Starring Jorge Trêpa, Ricardo Trêpa, Maria de MedeirosWith the freedom and rigor that were his trademarks, Portuguese master Manoel de Oliveira returned to Porto, the city where he had been born ninety-three years before, for this sublime...
