Plots are not essential to filmmaker Ivan Ayr’s independent films. Characters, instead, take centre stage. In his acclaimed debut, Soni, a hot-headed Delhi police officer navigates a rigged system. Ghalib, the trucker protagonist of his second film, Milestone, is quieter. Writing dialogues, says Ayr, doesn’t come easily to him. He would rather let the hardened faces and drab spaces speak for themselves. The filmmaker credits Haruki Murakami as an influence, which explains his tendency to model characters as “reticent and passive”.
In Milestone—which, like Soni,isalsoaNetflix release—Ayr zooms in on Ghalib, a recent widower devoted to his backbreaking work. He would easily fit into the world of Chloé Zhao’s Oscarwinningfilm Nomadland, a film which, in part, documents the time a widow spends in her van. “Truckers are modern nomads,” says Ayr,…
