Tehran. Equipped with a secret camera, film director Jafar Panahi is driving a taxi car, picking up people, but charging them nothing for the drive. He just wants to hear their stories and way of thinking about Iran's society. The first customer is a man supporting capital punishment for a man, he hears, who was charged with stealing car tires, but a female teacher opposes the death penalty. Next customer is Omid, who sells bootleg copies of films, and wants Jafar to assist him, since Jafar's recommendations caused a film student to buy more films from Omid. Jafar picks up two women holding two fish in a glass of water; afterward his 10-year old niece Hana sits in the passenger's seat, telling about her assignment in school: she has to make a short film. When Jafar exits the car, Hana films a boy taking some money that fell from a passing couple. Next is Nasrin Sotoudeh, a human rights lawyer, who is carrying flowers with her. Jafar and Hana exit the cab and walk away, while a robber breaks in and steals their camera.
For his 3rd film since Iran's 20-year old ban on him making movies, director Jafar Panahi proved once again his resilience: he is such a cineast that he is a film-addict, an author who either has to continue making movies or he will die. It is in his blood. "Taxi" is a highly unusual, almost Godard-like inventive evasion of the ban: he is driving a taxi and listening to passengers coming and going in his cab, listening to their thinking. It is unknown which way he achieved this. He probably toured driving a taxi, recorded real people entering his cab with a secret camera, but then went on to re-stage these events with actors playing these passengers, in an untypical docufiction film essay. While at first the viewers might feel reluctant to engage in the movie upon hearing that it is just a set of static episodes of people talking in a cab, with time—just like a good conversation—it grows on them, since there are some really interesting, sometimes comical characters popping up.
One example is Omid, a seller of films on bootleg DVDs, who tells Jafar he has the newest film for him, Allen's "Midnight in Paris". When a film student shows up, Omid suggests several titles, ranging from Kurosawa to Hollywood hits, so the student asks Jafar for his opinion on which movies he should watch, and then buys from Omid all what Jafar recommended. The movie also features a very cool moment where Jafar's problem solving skills rise to the occasion: two women are in the cab, holding a giant bowl of water with two fish in them, yet when the cab abruptly stops, the bowl breaks, leaving the fish on the floor, but Jafar simply exits the car, goes to the trunk, pours water from a container in a plastic bag and puts the fish in them, thereby saving them—like a king. Another sweet character is the 10-year old niece, Hana, who has to make a short film for her school homework: there is a neat scene where she uses her photo to film a boy taking some money that fell off from a passing couple, so she talks with him and tries to persuade him to return the money, so that he can "be the hero of her film", and do the right thing. Another great "guest" in the cab is human rights lawyer Nasrin, who does an irresistibly metafilm joke: she "gives" a rose flower to the camera, saying: "This is for the audience. Becuase one can always count on the movie viewers". It is remarkable how elegant and fluent the movie is, even though, by its concept, it shouldn't be, since it once again shows that life is made up out of small things which all form a part of its pleasure.
Grade:+++
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