I have no idea how Taxi, also known as Jafar Panahi’s Taxi or the lesser-known Taxi Tehran, got in my queue. It could be because I enjoy fake documentaries; it made a thematic top ten list, or I’m interested in seeing foreign films, and it was recommended. At any rate, it was there, about to expire and super short with a run time of only eighty-two minutes. I’m not familiar with Panahi’s films, which are banned in his homeland, Iran, but it requires a lot of patience to get the point, which could frustrate viewers not accustomed to independent films.
Jafar Panahi’s Taxi has the director driving the titular vehicle without charging his passengers while surreptitiously recording his passengers and his surrounding. I realized that it had to be fictional because it was the most dramatic cab rides ever. It is a cross section of the ordinary, the desperate, the disreputable and the outlaws, but not as exciting as I’m making it sound. If it were not for explicit themes winking at the viewer to signal that these quotidian and sensational moments have a larger meaning, it would be a mashup of Taxicab Confessions meets ER (apparently there is a British reality show called Ambulance so that could potentially work too). So why does it matter or why was it banned?
Normally when American viewers hear that a movie was banned, we immediately think that it was sexually explicit, even more violent than our mainstream fare or is so taboo by violating generally agreed upon standards of good taste and decency such as child porn or crushing videos. The Ministry of Islamic Guidance banned Jafar Panahi’s Taxi for the opposite reason. It represents society in a way that is not idealized and centers everything that they would prefer did not exist in society. If you’re familiar with Christian produced films, which I am, and I actually enjoy the apocalyptic ones, imagine if those types of films were the gold standard and anything that wasn’t similar or at least didn’t serve a devotional purpose was banned. If you believe that the fundamental tenet that will make society perfect is just following Jesus regardless of life not being simple and not just falling into place, then the people who believe that could be uncomfortable with the full spectrum of human emotion and experience then try to rationalize away the negativity instead of embrace and wrestle with it. Imagine if Job’s friends judged movies and decided which ones should be in theaters.
There is actually an explicit scene during the middle of Jafar Panahi’s Taxi when his niece recites the criteria for what makes a distributable film. Women must wear head scarves. The genders don’t mix. There should be no scenes of “sordid realism”: no politics, no socioeconomic issues. All names should come from the Koran. Guys should have beards. All Iranians must be depicted as good guys. Viewed from that perspective, Panahi’s film is horrifying. He gives women cab rides. People rob each other and explicitly violate the law in really understated ways. They argue or discuss the law. I don’t think any of the men had beards, or their outfit was in the Western style sans tie. Their version of Mike Pence is somewhere washing his eyes with soap and rocking himself.
Jafar Panahi’s Taxi is a defiant film that embraces everyday life and triumphs in the beauty of the mundane. Panahi is an affable, calm and soothing presence in the center of the maelstrom of diurnal life. He is the kind of guy that you would want as a neighbor, not some grandiose, pompous auteur who throws tantrums if everything isn’t perfect. I’d brunch with him and totally trust him with my cats. He isn’t a pushover. He has boundaries, and he enforces them, but he is the epitome of a gentleman. Given what little I know about this man, though the following could be hyperbole, I imagine that in a different world, he could be a Mister Rogers type.
It is impossible to judge a movie on its merits absent the context, but if we did so with Jafar Panahi’s Taxi, you probably wouldn’t enjoy it. Would you want to watch your life unfold on screen if it was an ordinary or your worst day? If you’re not a narcissist, and you were honest, you wouldn’t. That movie is boring, and most of those people were pushy and aggravating, which is why I rate Panahi as an individual so highly for treating them with such benevolence and patience. Their lack of planning became his problem, and he did not seem to mind. He was generous and understanding. I don’t care if they were acting, your body does not know that the annoyance is fictional.
The one exception is the celebrity guest spot in Jafar Panahi’s Taxi: Nasrin Sotoudeh, a stylish and controversial human rights lawyer who just happens to bump into him (sure, ok) and accepts a ride to visit a topical client, Ghoncheh Ghavami, whom I am unfamiliar with, but apparently she is a civil rights protestor against misogynistic laws. This moment does not happen until the latter portion of the film so if you want to fast forward to a lady with dyed hair holding roses, you found it. This scene will probably be used in a reel about their lives.
I appreciate Jafar Panahi’s Taxi’s artistic integrity in the face of suppression, persecution and restriction, but as someone who also enjoys being pulled into a movie emotionally so I forget the intellectual merits, it didn’t do it for me. If I walked away with an emotion, it was stress, and I generally don’t pay to see a movie to have an emotion that I experience regularly in real life. If you’re like me and watch foreign films to experience another culture, not just purely for entertainment, then it is a must see film, otherwise skip it.