“Taxi Tehran” Jafar Taxi is his film – Echoes

Thierry Gandillot

Jafar Panahi is absent most present of world cinema. In Cannes, in 2011, a chair of the jury presided by Robert De Niro had remained empty his. Since his release in 2010, the Iranian director suffered a quadruple ban: write scripts, make movies, go out of the country and, of course, talking about his situation. First down, depressed, Panahi has taken his camera to turn in his apartment “This Is Not a Film” arrived in Cannes in mysterious ways on a USB stick and then “closed curtain.”

This time Panahi improvised taxi driver. The history of photography is incredible, prodigious results. The original idea was to film the “real people” using a laptop in a collective taxi, where the word is still free. And we know, the Tehran have a sharp tongue and humor. But as soon as Panahi began filming, conversations stopped. He decided, then, to turn with non-professional actors, friends or friends of friends, who will tell written replies by him. Blackmagic three tiny cameras that take place with one hand and can be hidden in a tissue box filmed inside and outside the cab. Screw cap on his head, Panahi, debonair, leads, plays, directs his actors and manages its three cameras at a time.

It is so natural, so lively, so removed that one wonders at repeatedly if some scenes are not true, as if the real was an unexpected burst in fiction. Besides the director, the writer’s talent is no longer in doubt, casts doubt. It’s funny and tragic at the same time. We cross a DVD dealer censored two grannies pilgrimage with a goldfish bowl on his knees, an irresistible little Hana who wants to become a filmmaker Jafar as his uncle, a woman whose husband has just had blood in an accident and lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh who speaks openly, congested arms of a spray of rose she intended to a young woman detained for trying to attend a men’s volleyball match. Last February, Berlin Jafar Panahi awarded its highest award. This is the mischievous Hana, who came to recover the Golden Bear of his uncle. Since the filming, the courageous Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has been in prison and has not it either, the right to leave Iran, is, for the second time in his career, hit a ban to exercise his profession.

“Taxi Tehran” Jafar Pahani, 1 h 22

Thierry Gandillot