Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

The internationally celebrated banned Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi (“Offside”/”The Circle”/”The White Balloon”) shot this playful and thoughtful political documentary while under house arrest in Iran. He found a loophole in his ban, which allowed filming under a closed environment. His “Taxi” was meant to be a calling out for free speech in an authoritarian fundamentalist Islamic country. Panahi received a 6-year prison sentence and a 20-year ban from filmmaking because he backed the opposition party in the 2009 election. The plotless documentary centers around the affable Panahi driving a cab around busy Tehran and encountering a wide variety of passengers. They remain anonymous real citizens, who freely talk about their concerns. A man argues with a woman school teacher that even petty thieves should be hanged. A DVD bootlegger sells a customer discs recommended by Panahi. There are a number of other fares, including two older women carrying goldfish in a fish bowl who talk about the use of goldfish in one of his early films. But the best vignette involves his confrontation with his sharp-tongued 10-year-old niece Hana, an aspiring filmmaker. Despite her teacher’s list of restrictions, Hana disobeys them and shoots a scene in the street that results in her student film being destroyed. Considering the harsh conditions the humanist Panahi had to work under, getting this film released is a small miracle. It won the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival.

REVIEWED ON 6/14/2016 GRADE: B

Dennis Schwartz: “Ozus’ World Movie Reviews”

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