A gritty tale of survival in New York's Iron Triangle

Alejandro Polanco does what he must to survive in "Chop Shop."

You can always spot a filmmaker who watches people with the same care that he watches movies. The characters upstage any style or particular genre long enough for the human behavior to occupy the foreground, for the illusion to work its magic: Life is calling the shots, not a screenplay. The socially explorative independent director Ramin Bahrani practices that kind of transparency. His first movie, "Man Push Cart," from 2005, starred a Pakistani immigrant named Ahmad, who tugged his doughnut truck around Manhattan to its daily spot on 6th Avenue. The film put realism to bleakly Sisyphean ends. Life: What a grind.

Bahrani's even better new film, "Chop Shop," is a less stoic extension of "Man Push Cart." We're in Willets Point, the 13-block scrap yard near Flushing and Corona in Queens. At the center of this movie is another hustler, Alejandro (Alejandro Polanco). He sells bootleg DVDs on the street, stolen auto parts, fake jewelry. He has a foul mouth. If he's particularly desperate, he might swipe your purse, and he's about 12.

Willets Point is also known as the Iron Triangle, the prevailing work of architecture is Shea Stadium, and the 2000 census reported that it had one official resident. If "Chop Shop," which opens today at the Brattle, is any indication, there are lots of unofficial residents.

Polanco, while hardly a natural actor, is naturally charismatic, which permits Bahrani to draw some comedy out of his star's personality. It's a classic native New York brand: steely, sarcastic. Ale, as Alejandro is known, and his buddy Carlos (Carlos Zapata) board a subway armed with boxes of M&Ms and chocolate bars, and he levels with his customers. "I'm not gonna lie to you. We are not here selling candy for no school basketball team. I don't even go to school, and if you want me back in school today I got candy for you." Save your pity. Open your wallet.

Ale's day job in Corona is at one of the chop shops on a strip of shady auto repair joints where cars are dismantled for replacement parts. There are no trees or flowers, just a post-industrial landscape of concrete, metal, and junk. His boss is letting him live in a bedroom above the garage. Soon his older sister Isamar (Isamar Gonzales) joins Ale as his roommate. She wants to try to get to Florida where there's a rumor of a fancy school for her. We don't know anything about what happened to their parents or how they became displaced. Any number of unhappy scenarios - death, deportation, delinquency - seem possible, but since the kids don't dwell on it, we're not asked to. Instead, they're excited to scrimp and save to buy a taco truck.

Everything about "Chop Shop" is modest - the movie's scale, the characters' ambitions. Another director might have tried to nudge the film's grim detours toward tragedy. And that might have worked, too. But Bahrani is a refreshingly deceptive director in that sense. He makes us believe these kids' lives are out of his hands. It's exciting watching Bahrani explore the possibilities of neo-realism to dramatize penury and disenfranchisement among the service-class in this country. The style can lift a rock on a society without turning characters into ants and wallowing in the blues. The Europeans and Iranians have been lifting that rock for decades. It's exciting to see more directors visiting the American quarry.

Wesley Morris can be reached at wmorris@globe.com. For more on movies, go to boston.com/ae/movienation.