Jafar Panahi sitting in the driver’s seat of a taxi isn’t a sight that international audiences should be able to see. The Iranian filmmaker has been forbidden from practising his profession by his nation’s government, ensuring that the images of him in his latest feature make an immediate statement. In Tehran Taxi, he’s not only once again flouting that restriction, as he previously did with 2010s This Is Not A Film and 2013s Closed Curtain; he’s putting his face as well as his name to his act of defiance.
His smiling countenance speaks volumes about his fortitude to fight against his penalty; however it also conveys more than that. Here he’s an everyman using a popular, public form of transport to ferry around other ordinary Tehran folks, and to do what he has always done best: tell tales of his homeland and its populace. A dashboard camera captures his passengers, as well as enforcing a sense of confinement mirroring Panahi’s in his highly publicised circumstances and his compatriots in general under a regime of strict control. The recordings immortalise conversations spanning a variety of topics, including forms of punishment, access to Western films and the limitations imposed upon creativity, with the obvious question — whether the discussions have been staged — purposefully remaining unanswered.
So it is that Panahi circles the city, a conduit not only taking others from point A to B, but shipping their tales and experiences to the world. Strangers bicker over crime and punishment, an injured husband pleads for his will to be recorded so that his wife will inherit his possessions rather than his brothers, and two elderly women try to transport a goldfish for superstitious purposes. A bootlegger recognises him, and he chats with acquaintances, a lawyer no longer allowed to work due to her involvement with political prisoners among them. His niece, Hana, also features, first petulant at his late arrival, then lecturing about that day’s learnings — regarding what comprises a “screenable” film in the eyes of the national administration — and finally forced to face the difficulties of complying with those conditions herself.
Individually, their musings shed light on everything from the plight of women to the many shades of state censorship; woven together, they become a rich tapestry representing the complex status of their country. In doing so, Tehran Taxi both follows in the footsteps of many other Iranian efforts, such as Abbas Kiarostami’s Ten, and navigates its own path. Its vignettes and the topics they contain hardly garner surprise, but rarely has content of this type felt so genuine and unassuming. As the footage jumps between segments, its editing might reinforce its calculated construction — and the presence of Panahi might stress its leanings towards artifice — but the sights and statements contained within always seethe with reality.
Two elements prove pivotal: spirit and simplicity. The former is a hallmark of all of Panahi’s efforts to date, even those firmly on the solemn side such as his preceding two features; however the resolve to find a way forward demonstrated in Tehran Taxi adds hope and affection as well as personality. The latter is less commonly associated with a director of such layered, textured works — and while he’s still offering both here, he does so in as plain a fashion as he can muster. What can be more determined and direct, not to mentioning challenging to the status quo, than a banned filmmaker taking a risk to sit inside the stories of horror and hardship he gives voice to, after all?
Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5
Tehran Taxi
Director: Jafar Panahi
Iran, 2015, 82 mins
Australian Centre for the Moving Image
December 27 – January 24
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