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How entertaining? ★★★★★
Thought provoking? ★★★★☆ 16 April 2015
This article is a review of TAXI.Seen at the Berlin International Film Festival 2015. (For more information, click here.)
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“Why are you sweating so much?” Jafar Panahi
Jafar Panahi, we salute you. Sentenced to house arrest and a 20-year filmmaking ban, the Iranian writer-director has managed to make three movies in that time – each getting more ambitious in scope. Anyone who has watched pre-curtailment CRIMSON GOLD or THE CIRCLE or OFFSIDE will know what a devastating shame that this ridiculously gifted filmmaker should be prevented from pursuing his craft – works narratively dense, politically engaging and emotionally powerful.
Leaving behind his homes (used in THIS IS NOT A FILM and CLOSED CURTAIN), Panahi takes the wheel of a cab and hits the streets of Tehran. The bustling streets of Iran’s capital at a busy intersection, the on-board dash-mounted camera is swivelled for a long continuous take. At first one wonders if we are in documentary territory, until the initial passengers (multiple customers can cost-effectively/efficiently share the vehicle) converse on the nature of capital punishment. Okay, so TAXI appears scripted, and scripted perfectly to an inch of its life – each word articulate and focused, delivered naturalistically as if from the mouths of the most adroit improvisers.
Jafar Panahi, we salute you. Sentenced to house arrest and a 20-year filmmaking ban, the Iranian writer-director has managed to make three movies in that time – each getting more ambitious in scope. Anyone who has watched pre-curtailment CRIMSON GOLD or THE CIRCLE or OFFSIDE will know what a devastating shame that this ridiculously gifted filmmaker should be prevented from pursuing his craft – works narratively dense, politically engaging and emotionally powerful.
Leaving behind his homes (used in THIS IS NOT A FILM and CLOSED CURTAIN), Panahi takes the wheel of a cab and hits the streets of Tehran. The bustling streets of Iran’s capital at a busy intersection, the on-board dash-mounted camera is swivelled for a long continuous take. At first one wonders if we are in documentary territory, until the initial passengers (multiple customers can cost-effectively/efficiently share the vehicle) converse on the nature of capital punishment. Okay, so TAXI appears scripted, and scripted perfectly to an inch of its life – each word articulate and focused, delivered naturalistically as if from the mouths of the most adroit improvisers.
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Po-faced pointed pontificating the project is not. Humour, laugh out loud, in places has Panahi flex a seldom-used artistic muscle. From a DVD pirate, who recognises the director in disguise and offers him THE WALKING DEAD or daily rushes from movies still in production, to his precocious frappuccino-loving niece (who collected the deserved Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear prize on Jafar’s behalf), characters and lines zing. Wrapped up in jest are wry observations at the state of the country’s cinema industry. (That the pirate can also get the director ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA at least shows he has taste.)
Avoiding sedentary odyssey, a motorcycle road accident has our driver take the pain-soaked victim and spouse to the hospital, as his last will and testament are recorded on Panahi’s iPhone (updated since THIS IS NOT A FILM – everyone wants a model refresh from time to time surely?). Familial societal injustice scolded, check.
No road movie is complete sans a surreal sequence (e.g. the gorgeous surfer lady on a moped in VANISHING POINT). Two superstitious, panicky passengers request Jafar to get them to a particular water source for the live fish they are transporting in a glass bowl. Allegorically puzzling.
State disapproved “sordid realism” is how a civil rights lawyer friend calls their frankness. Comparing the country’s bar association impending three-year ban on her practising has echoes of his own travails, but contextualised too, reminds of even higher callings.
The last shot is a conspiratorial doozy.
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