Taxi

The genre of films made in or about taxis has already produced some masterpieces: „Taxi Lisboa" (1970) and „Night on Earth" (1991). Now Jafar Panahi, living in Tehran, has made a very important film that gives us Westerners a glimpse of what it is like to live in the Iranian capital nowadays. This is already his third movie that he made unlicensed and undercover. In 2010 he was imposed a 20 years' ban on producing films, is not allowed to leave the country and was put into prison. Iranian film-making is of two kinds, Panahi mused: local films for the public in Iran, heavily censored and films produced with the idea in mind to participate in international film festivals. He was awarded the Berlin Golden Bear this year. Viewing this film one feels really disconcerted by the director's taxi driving- and-filming stunt, his composed feature and the chaotic lives that passengers bring with them into the cab. Tehran has 12-15m inhabitants, with urban transport being chronically difficult. There are buses and taxis, but an underground system is still under construction. Taxis then are an obvious choice for the setting of an „under- ground" movie that discusses Iranian lives and hopes for a better future. The main theme of the film is how one can live in a society where strict laws are enforced about many things that seem to us unimportant or even trivial: A woman going to a basket ball game may be harassed and even arrested. It is the women characters then who make some very strong statements in the film. There is a lawyer and human rights activist, a friend of Panahi's, who was herself punished with a prison sentence, but pursues in her activities. Then the heroine of the film: supposedly Panahi's niece, a very bright school-girl who films street scenes and the director/taxi- driver/uncle with her i-Phone, is learning about film-making „that can be shown" in Iran, i.e. that would pass censorship. Life in a society that is strictly controlled by guards and police, laws that seem hard or impossible to be observed finds loopholes and the open question is how much Iran's government really is in control. But then of course the enforcement of laws may be random or imposed rather on the poorer levels of society.

Imagine, if you will, a world in which you may walk freely on the streets, but are hardly free at all. That's the world in which Iranian director Jafar Panahi lives, breathes and tries to work - one we're introduced to in gentle, tartly comic fashion in his latest film. Taxi, which won the Golden Bear at the 2015 Berlin International Film Festival, gives viewers a seductive, sobering glimpse into modern- day Iran, a country where criminals are executed for petty theft and women jailed for trying to attend a men's volleyball match.

The premise of Taxi is simple - Panahi himself, with cameras cleverly affixed throughout his vehicle, drives a taxi through the teeming streets of Iran. Throughout the day, Panahi the cabbie picks up strangers, friends and relatives, played by themselves or non- professional actors. Along the way, he makes idle conversation with them, or they chat amongst themselves - ordinary chatter that carries quite extraordinary import.

It's fascinating, thought-provoking stuff, delving deeply into ideas and questions about Iran and its politics while firmly couched in the language of the everyday. Two passengers launch into an impassioned discussion on the merits (or lack thereof) of capital punishment and syariah law. The broken body of a man is bundled into the backseat and, with what he thinks is his dying breath, he tries to circumvent laws that will prevent his sobbing wife from inheriting their home. Art and ideas are sold on the streets, the stuff of covert piracy, as the precocious Hana Saeidi, Panahi's young niece, relates to him the lessons she has learnt on how exactly to make films that will be 'screenable' in Iran.

To be honest, the final film is an amiable if somewhat rickety affair. Parts of it work better as metaphors, faltering somewhat in the execution. For instance, Hana is, literally and metaphorically, the future - both of Iran and, with her own little hand-held camera, filmmaking. But the moment when she tries to exert control over a scene she's shooting from the window of the taxi, haranguing a little boy to behave differently so that her footage will pass muster in school, feels a little too on-the-nose. In a couple of instances, it's easy to identify the issues Panahi wants to raise: in a bowl of fish or an iPad video, he finds insights about the power of superstition and the tragedy of poverty. But the scenes themselves don't always work as well, ambling when they should sprint.

Nevertheless, it's impossible to remain unmoved by the quiet power and heartbreaking passion of Taxi. This is a gem of a film: subtle, leisurely and surprisingly funny; thoughtful and deep but rarely overbearingly so. It's all the more impressive, of course, as a testament to Panahi's ongoing refusal to bend and break beneath the 20-year filmmaking ban that was slapped on him in December 2010. Since then, he's smuggled a film out of Iran on a flash drive baked into a cake, and assembled Taxi out of cam footage shot in broad daylight in Tehran. That's why, in ways both big and small, Taxi serves as a bold reminder of the bravery and strength of the human spirit.

Acclaimed Iranian director Jafar Panahi drives a cab through the streets of Teheran. The changing passengers speak out openly what is on their mind. A female teacher and a young man discuss death penalty, a bootlegger offers the new season of "The Walking Dead" and some Woody Allen movies, two old women want to transport their goldfish in a glass bowl to a holy place, a young woman wants to transport her much older husband who has been injured in an accident, and a cheeky little girl explains the rules of Iranian filmmaking and her entitlement to a frappuccino.

A highly emotionally satisfying miniature. On the surface it feels small and funny, but underneath it is seething in anger and defiance at the Iranian government. One of the stuff that makes the movie so unusual is that it is so difficult to pinpoint whether everything is planned or caught in the spur of the moment. Especially the final scene which kept my mind wondering. I really like this a lot. More so when I found out about the sad state of affairs for Jafar Panahi. He is actually banned from making movies for 20 years because he was deemed to have crossed the "sordid realism" line drawn by the Iranian government. How he subtly pokes fun at the authorities is hilarious and yet warm. The whole 80+ min film feels like a window into another world, a world not unlike ours, especially when Eric Khoo's most recent film is deemed "unscreenable". One of the most important films I have seen this year. Now I feel like hunting down The White Balloon, Closed Curtains and This Is Not a Film.

Some films can't be fully appreciated without knowledge of the way they have been conceived. This is clearly the case for 'Taxi Teheran'. The story behind it: Iranian film maker Jafar Panahi has been convicted by the regime for making 'subversive' films, and is no longer allowed to film in Iran. Consequently, Panahi has switched to making 'stealth' films: his film making is no longer visible. These films are smuggled out of the country and showed in art-house cinemas around the world.

'Taxi Teheran' is filmed with a dash cam. It shows Panahi as a taxi driver in Teheran, talking with his passengers, and discussing the hot political topics in Iran he is not allowed to touch upon. His passengers talk about the death penalty, about political prisoners, about the male-centred inheritance laws, or about Ghoncheh Ghavami, the woman who got a prison sentence for attending a volleyball game.

Panahi cleverly links the political issues to real-life situations, such as the wish of a of a motorcycle accident victim, to have his last will and testament filmed with a smart-phone, before he passes away. The film is far from boring and has some funny moments. It's all done in a documentary style, without any artificial cinematographic additions. Still, everything is staged, and some camera movements and cuts make clear that Panahi is a professional director.

Unfortunately, just its being made in a stealth mode doesn't mean 'Taxi Teheran' is a terrific film. It largely depends on the dash cam-gimmick, which wears off after a half hour or so. The story itself is too meager to carry the whole film, and some of the taxi passengers are just not interesting enough to grab the viewer's attention.

Jafar Panahi is an Iranian filmmaker who has made some very interesting films, such as "The Mirror". However, despite his films seeming to be very slight, enjoyable and rather apolitical, he's gotten into trouble with his government. He was arrested back in 2010 and no specific charges were forthcoming for some time. In the meantime, filmmakers from all over the world pressed for his release. Eventually he was released but the government also said that he "was making a film against the regime and it was about the events that followed the [2009] election" and that was why he was detained. Because of these vague charges, Panahi has been banned from filmmaking for 20 years. But, Panahi has continued to fight this and made "This Is Not a Film" (2011) and "Taxi" (2015) while under this ban. These projects were smuggled out of Iran and have been shown in the West...and the exact consequences to Panahi are uncertain.

As far as his latest film, Taxi, is concerned it's an extremely strange project--so strange I really cannot rate it. The film is completely untraditional and I've never seen anything like it. The film looks like a documentary with no real actors, though the story is in fact a story and the folks participating are not unsuspecting members of the public. In the film, Panahi plays himself and he's inexplicably driving a taxi and using a dashcam to record his passengers. The recordings are supposedly meant to illustrate some of the societal themes Iranians are struggling with and they supposedly talk without realizing they are being filmed. Among the many themes you learn about is an underground cottage industry which illegally disseminates banned Western films, how the incredibly strict Sharia Law is impacting society negatively as well as the overall climate of suspicion and secrecy. It's all incredibly strange and looks a lot like a reality television show...albeit one set in Iran.

So did I love the film? No...not really. It is very interesting and thought-provoking but it also lacks the sort of narrative or style of a film. There are no real opening or closing credits and it looks more like raw footage of Panahi and his passengers was simply smuggled out of the country. Because of this, you cannot rightfully give the film a score such as an A, B or C...it's more a piece of art that also has the ability to place the viewer into the cab along with these people to glean little snippets of their lives and their concerns. Intriguing and out this week on Netflix.