Rat Rod
2025 · 10m · United States
Directed by Carly Jakins, Jared Jakins
Genres: biography, documentary
Tones: contemplative, tender
A Utah garage, a salvaged bicycle, and the immigrant story of Jorge Ramirez, who rebuilds rat rods the way he has rebuilt his own life.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
This plays it straight—immigrant-rebuilds-life-through-craft is exactly the consensus doc beat everyone's been doing since 2015. The bicycle-as-metaphor is so on-brand it borders on self-parody; I wanted it to crack itself open or admit the sentimentality, but it just leans in.
A formally composed meditation on labor and renewal that respects both documentary tradition and the dignity of its subject; the garage as intimate portrait-space recalls a lineage of American craft cinema that prizes stillness and listening.
The decision to let the hands and the machine do the talking—minimal interview, maximum tactile detail—is what makes this work; there's a single moment where Ramirez adjusts a bolt and the whole philosophy clicks into place without a word spoken.
Reviews
Hearing Jorge Ramirez talk about what he loves about cars is really inspiring even if, like me, you don't know the mechanics. Rat Rod is a declaration of one's own life–how the sum of our identity is not just parts.