A.O. Scott and the scrambled city — live from Istanbul.

Istanbul.  New York.  Portland.  Tehran.

After a recent discussion with director Ramin Bahrani about New York, A.O. Scott writes that the filmmaker was “amazed by the complexity and energy of the city, the way it scrambled all different types of people together and forced them to deal with one another.”  Scott tells us that the comment refers less to the “demographic particulars” of the city and more to the “hectic, patchwork ambience of work and idleness, affluence and hardship.”

Bahrani, whose works include “Man Push Cart,” also compares New York’s scrambledness to that of Tehran.  Both cities, he feels, boast a kind of energy, an overwhelming jumble of human interaction that he loves, and tries to capture in his films.

Reading Scott’s article on “Neo Neo Realism,” it’s pretty clear that neither filmmaker nor critic brought up Portland, Oregon.  Call it a hunch, but I doubt it entered the conversation.

Portland simply doesn’t feel scrambled.  Sure, in any city people are forced to deal with one another more than, say, in the quintessential manicured suburb, where each family sits in its house bubble, which sits in its cul-de-sac bubble, which is sometimes traveled to and from in a gas-powered car bubble.  The quintessential (or stereotypical? though I’ve sure seen it in plenty of places) suburb does not require one to interact much with others, to smush alongside them on buses, on trains.

So compared with this, Portland looks like more of a “patchwork,” and certainly more of a “hectic patchwork,” than the suburbs on most days.  But the idea of a “scrambled” city, which seems an apt description of New York and is, I assume, also apt for Tehran, doesn’t really work for p.d.x.

It’s not that Portland doesn’t have any variety within its population, and it’s certainly not that everyone is rich.  (See “The Economy Has Gone to Hell” in any major newspaper — those still in the black, that is.)  But Portland is just not all a-jumble.  People are not “forced” to deal with one another in the ways they are in New York, Tehran, and — now that I’ve been here a few days — Istanbul.  Perhaps this is why p.d.x. is known as such a relaxing town — and, why I keep catching myself calling it a “town.”  Yes, I may be a jerk to some – certainly, I’ve inadvertently elicited the “Hey!  We’re a city too!” reaction from a few Portlanders.  But the ease with which Portland moves, the calmness with which people interact, and the fact that there is, in fact, a relatively homogeneous population as compared to other cities, renders Portland a different kind of place.

If A.O. Scott categorizes certain New York- and Tehran-infused films as “Neo Neo Realist,” does it follow that Portland, an idyllic bubble in comparison, isn’t exactly real?

Well, for now:  if New York, Tehran, and Istanbul are scrambled, p.d.x. is sunny side up.

Tune in next time for more on Istanbul!  It’s feeling pretty scrambly — and I’m feeling right at home.