Published via Ecency

(source: tmdb.org)

Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver is among the most important and the most influential works of 1970s cinema. Yet, there were hardly any remakes or films that tried to build directly on its legacy. This might be explained with film makers’ reluctance to continue exploring Scorsese’ themes and fear that they venture into territories much darker than Scorsese dared to do. One of the few film makers that wasn’t discouraged with this prospect was Spanish director Carlos Saura when he made his 1996 film Taxi.

The plot is set in Madrid and the protagonist, played by Ingrid Rubio, is young woman who has just failed her university exam and broke up with her boyfriend. She reacts to those frustrations by cutting her hair and announcing that she would leave university. This doesn’t sit well with her father Velasco (Angel de Andres Lopez) who demands that she earn her living by joining him as a taxi driver. Paz very reluctantly does so, although she is initially well-received by Velasco’s fellow drivers who happen to be his close friends and relate to themselves as “Family”. This circle includes Dani (played by Carlos Fuentes), young man who is about to finish his military service and with whom she starts romantic relationship. In the meantime, Paz also begins to notice some strange details about Family, which includes speaking in codes while communicating over radio. Things get even more disturbing when media starts reporting about series of by violent deaths of drug addicts, transexuals and other people some of Family’s members openly refer to as “filth”.

Taxi is based on a very simple concept. Script by Santiago Tabernero asks what would happen if someone would have taken Travis Bickle’s rants of “cleaning the streets” in Taxi Driver seriously, especially if that someone included organisation rather than individual. Carlos Saura, director who, until the time of Pedro Almodovar, used to be the most famous author of Spanish cinema, knew the answer well. His career started during the last decades of Franco’s dictatorship and many of his films explored its violent nature and dark legacy. In Taxi Saura expressed fear that, even two decades after establishment of modern Spanish democracy, there are dark forces of fascism that would rear their ugly head after hiding under guise of seemingly ordinary working class taxi drivers.

Despite this intriguing concept, Taxi turned into one of the lesser knowns titles in Saura’s filmography. This could only be partially explained by eponmyous French film made two years later becoming massive hit and thus throwing Saura’s film into oblivion. Unlike masterful direction of Scorsese, Saura in Taxi failed to deliver particularly memorable experience. He viewed his film as a pretentious festival award-winning drama rather than thriller, thus preventing the plot being shown from Paz’s perspective. Family and its vile activities are revealed too early to allow any suspense and the characters of Paz and Dani are undeveloped and their romance looks like a cliché. Acting, on the other hand, is very good, especially in case of young Ingrid Rubio who plays confused protagonist. Carlos Fuentes, who looks like he could inherit Antonio Banderas as top heartthrob of Spanish cinema, also delivers good performance. Saura, perhaps in an attempt to underline multi-cultural character of Spain, so different from the reactionary vision of Family, uses songs of Mano Negra and Gypsy Kings as soundtrack, sometimes at rather inopportune moments. The final showdown, that takes place at Madrid’s Monument of Alfonso XII, which is supposed to provide some sort of symbolic connection between Spain’s past and present, looks pretentious and anti-cathartic. Good acting and solid direction make Taxi more than watchable but viewers who expected something worthy of Taxi Driver or close to Saura’s reputation as great film maker will be disappointed.

RATING: 5/10 (++)