Though challenging to watch because of its incessant displays of heinous human behavior, Alex Gibney's documentary "Taxi to the Dark Side" is invaluable for the information it exposes and forces engagement with. What caused the abuses of prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, and who is responsible? Gibney offers such a comprehensive, cogent, and incisive outline of the Bush administation's deplorable decisions during the War on Terror that the death of Afghan prisoner Dilawar actually make sense.
Interviews with military police and intelligence officers explain how an innocent taxi-driver was taken to Bagram prison and eventually murdered. Blithe descriptions of brutality portrays the men as embarrassingly ignorant of sympathy, compassion, and mercy for their prisoners. Despite nothing but constant cries for his family, Dilawar and the other Persons Under Control are perceived as "evil people that definitely had violent intentions."
The staggeringly dense editing combines interviews footage with zooming in and out on countless photographs, diagrams and news articles. Archival footage of courtroom cases, torture handycams, and suggestive reenactments round out the slick presentation. Statistics are presented, quoted, and analyzed. Weaved throughout the steady flow of facts, condemnations, and horrific accounts is a helpful narration track that focuses the shocking revelations around the questions of "who did this?", "who is actually responsible?", and "how was this allowed?"
Gibney traces the confusion about responsible detention and interrogation techniques from Bagram with Dilawar to Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib, and then goes back to 9/11 to give context for how the rules of war got so murky in the first place. Incriminating footage of Dick Cheney saying he wants to take the gloves off and get rough with detainees gets the sinister snowball rolling in regard to redefining torture in order to get any and all information possible.
No qualms are taken in condemning the primary architects of torture; Gibney relays the scandalous information that Cheney, Bush, Alberto Gonzales, and John Yoo wrote a series of memos arguing that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to suspected terrorists. Everything is presented logically enough to understand, even though no one wants to: a fog of ambiguity about how to behave in these difficult circumstances coupled with great pressure to produce results led to the "outrages upon human dignity" that Bush says "is so vague."
There are so many jaw-dropping displays of stupidity, inhumanity, and irresponsibility that it's impossible not to get mad, disturbed, and frustrated by this movie. Calling Cheney's comments about water-boarding being a "no-brainer" offensive would be a severe understatement. But it's those exact moments that force engagement with the material. Grappling with what has been done in our name only inspires people to act, or at least talk about it. It is made very clear to supporters of torture that it is inefficient, inhumane, and breeds contempt for the United States.
Two years ago when it was released, "Taxi" was a crushing blow to the American psyche. Things were going downhill and this movie seemingly exacerbated the bleakness. But under Obama's new anti-torture administration, Gibney's film is an educational achievement that will hopefully stand as an important document of how things used to be, instead of how things are today.
2 comments:
I think that I knew what you meant by saying Dilawar's death "made sense" in the opening paragraph, but I think you could perhaps reconsider your word choice. Otherwise, good tie in at the end to current events.
Our reviews are very similar in form, particularly in the first halves. Your description of the editing is really nice. I have trouble articulating exactly how film works, so I usually resort to talking about how it feels to me. Well done.
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