Star Rating:

Taxi Tehran

Director: Jafar Panahi

Actors: Jafar Panahi

Release Date: Friday 30th October 2015

Genre(s): Drama

Running time: 82 minutes

Just when you’ve had enough Jafar Panahi films about why he can’t make films he turns up with his best since 2005’s Offside. He’s still self-indulgent and seems more intent on protest than narrative but Taxi Tehran (or Jafar Panahi’s Taxi, or Taxi, as it’s also known) is as warm and accessible as he’s been in some time.

Banned from making films for twenty years, Panahi, still technically under house arrest, has taken to driving a taxi around Iran’s capital. He has mounted a camera on the dash and 'secretly' films his passengers' conversations; the passengers are of course actors, which dodgy DVD salesman Amid cops onto as he shares the cab with two others - he’s also an actor, though, playing a fan of Panahi’s work. As Panahi makes his way around Tehran, the conversations he has with the passengers in his car underline Iran’s oppressive censorship laws.

There’s the man and woman who argue about the death sentence for theft; the dying man who uses the taxi to get to the hospital, determined that Amid record his last will and testament so his wife will receive the deeds to the house and not his brothers (as is the law); the old ladies who, as tradition dictates, must place two goldfish in a spring before noon; and Panahi’s ten- year-old niece, the chatterbox Hana, who is making her own film for her class and struggles with the rules laid down by her teacher ("Avoid sordid reality"). In a late development that frustratingly is given no time to explore further, it is revealed that Panahi was attacked the week before and is on the lookout for his assailant. There’s the lawyer who is barred from practicing by her own organisation too.

It can suffer from repetition, some scenarios (like the film within a film) take up too much screen time, and there too many references to Panahi’s previous outings - The While Balloon, Offside, The Crimson Gold - but Taxi Tehran is his most engaging film in ten years. And what a great final shot, a thank you to those who have supported him in the face of danger.