Taxi (Film Review)
Or "Teheran Taxi", as the German title is, because another movie named "Taxi" was just released as well. This one won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year, and now that I've watched it, I can say: deservedly so.
It's a Persian movie, directed by Jafar Panahi, and the only way people in Iran will be able to watch it is via bootlegs, since Jafar Panahi is currently officially forbidden to make any movies at all. It takes place entirely inside a car, with a deceptively simple premise: passengers of the taxi they assume the director's car to be drop in and out, leading to an anthology of cinematic short stories, shot via a camera installed in the taxi, and the occasional mobile phone. It never drags or feels self pitying, not even when one of the later passengers, a (female) lawyer recently disbarred from practicing, says "that's as ridiculous as if they'd forbid you to make movies". Panahi doesn't comment.
(BTW, early on, a passenger asks whether the others are actors, which also doesn't get a reply; I think it's fairly obvious they all or, not least because the characters include a bootleg dvd seller, Omid, the above mentioned lawyer, a (female) teacher questioning the use of Sharia law against thieves and spiritedly debating it with another passenger, etc., all of whom would be placed in severe danger if they were real as opposed to fictional.)
Despite the cramped location and the themes adressed, the film feels fast paced and often funny, with the passengers all coming to life as characters within their short narrative spaces. You don't see much of Teheran - it could be any big city with palm trees the car keeps driving through - but nonetheless the sense of place is vivid, complete with ever present robbery problem, a red thread throughout the movie. If this was shot by a non-Iranian director and set in Iran, I bet all the women would wear black and all the men would wear traditional clothing; here, their scarfs and bourkas are of varying colours, some wear trousers beneath them, and the men wear t-shirts and jeans more often than not. A former neigbour of Panahi's shows up in a suit and a tie. After Panahi's niece Hana (a girl who is arguably the movie's most memorable character among many memorable characters) points out her teacher told her the rules of what is and isn't permissable in movies, she says that to make the neigbour a sympathetic character, they'd have to change him altogether - no sympathetic character is supposed to wear a tie. Or have a Persian name, which surprised me; the Ministry of Islamic Guidance rules say sympathetic characters ought to have Arab names, preferably those of the holy Imans.
Hana is shooting a movie as a school project herself and ties to boss a young boy she spots stealing a purse into returning it, so he can be a hero (and sympathetic character); the fact the passengers include more women then men, and women of all ages, from schoolgirl Hana via the teacher, the lawyer and the distressed wife of a moped driver who had an accident to two middleaged-to-old women who want to put their goldfish into the Ali Spring (don't ask), makes this film compare positively a great deal of current Western hit movies. I'm just saying.
All in all, a compelling look at current day Iran which makes its point against censorship and the current laws in a deceptively good natured way, and therefore even more effectively. Highly reccommended.
Trivia: the bootleg seller is pimping The Walking Dead's fifth season to one of his clients. Wasn't that the most recent one? Iranian bootleggers work quickly!
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1106306.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
It's a Persian movie, directed by Jafar Panahi, and the only way people in Iran will be able to watch it is via bootlegs, since Jafar Panahi is currently officially forbidden to make any movies at all. It takes place entirely inside a car, with a deceptively simple premise: passengers of the taxi they assume the director's car to be drop in and out, leading to an anthology of cinematic short stories, shot via a camera installed in the taxi, and the occasional mobile phone. It never drags or feels self pitying, not even when one of the later passengers, a (female) lawyer recently disbarred from practicing, says "that's as ridiculous as if they'd forbid you to make movies". Panahi doesn't comment.
(BTW, early on, a passenger asks whether the others are actors, which also doesn't get a reply; I think it's fairly obvious they all or, not least because the characters include a bootleg dvd seller, Omid, the above mentioned lawyer, a (female) teacher questioning the use of Sharia law against thieves and spiritedly debating it with another passenger, etc., all of whom would be placed in severe danger if they were real as opposed to fictional.)
Despite the cramped location and the themes adressed, the film feels fast paced and often funny, with the passengers all coming to life as characters within their short narrative spaces. You don't see much of Teheran - it could be any big city with palm trees the car keeps driving through - but nonetheless the sense of place is vivid, complete with ever present robbery problem, a red thread throughout the movie. If this was shot by a non-Iranian director and set in Iran, I bet all the women would wear black and all the men would wear traditional clothing; here, their scarfs and bourkas are of varying colours, some wear trousers beneath them, and the men wear t-shirts and jeans more often than not. A former neigbour of Panahi's shows up in a suit and a tie. After Panahi's niece Hana (a girl who is arguably the movie's most memorable character among many memorable characters) points out her teacher told her the rules of what is and isn't permissable in movies, she says that to make the neigbour a sympathetic character, they'd have to change him altogether - no sympathetic character is supposed to wear a tie. Or have a Persian name, which surprised me; the Ministry of Islamic Guidance rules say sympathetic characters ought to have Arab names, preferably those of the holy Imans.
Hana is shooting a movie as a school project herself and ties to boss a young boy she spots stealing a purse into returning it, so he can be a hero (and sympathetic character); the fact the passengers include more women then men, and women of all ages, from schoolgirl Hana via the teacher, the lawyer and the distressed wife of a moped driver who had an accident to two middleaged-to-old women who want to put their goldfish into the Ali Spring (don't ask), makes this film compare positively a great deal of current Western hit movies. I'm just saying.
All in all, a compelling look at current day Iran which makes its point against censorship and the current laws in a deceptively good natured way, and therefore even more effectively. Highly reccommended.
Trivia: the bootleg seller is pimping The Walking Dead's fifth season to one of his clients. Wasn't that the most recent one? Iranian bootleggers work quickly!
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1106306.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.