When it comes to Jafar Panahi, every new film of his is an event, and with every review of one of his latest works comes an explanation for why his new film(s) are so necessary. In 2010, Panahi was imprisoned and charged with several ridiculous crimes for publicly supporting Iran’s Green Movement. He was sentenced to six years in prison and received a 20-year ban on filmmaking, and since then Panahi has made three films: This is Not a Film, Closed Curtain and now Jafar Panahi’s Taxi. The first two films dealt with seclusion and fear; This is Not a Film took place largely in Panahi’s apartment (he was on house arrest), and Closed Curtain took place at a vacation home where he had to cover up the windows so no one could see him filming. But now, with Jafar Panahi’s Taxi, he’s doing his boldest move yet by going out into the streets of Tehran. It’s a surprisingly playful turn for Panahi, although it never distracts or dampens from the reality of his situation.

The set-up is simple, probably out of necessity. Panahi plays a taxi driver going around Tehran encountering a variety of people, all of whom address some sort of political and/or moral issue through whatever conversation or experience they have in the cab. Panahi uses stationary cameras in the taxi to capture all the action, mainly relying on a dashboard camera which he frequently pivots to whatever needs to be seen. The opening scene has him picking up a man and woman separately, with the man confusing the camera for a security system. He says thieves should be hanged in Iran, and that triggers off a debate with the woman over the death penalty and punishment. It’s a captivating discussion with a funny punchline; the man turns out to be a thief himself, but specifies that he only steals from people who deserve it, like people who steal from the poor.

But before there’s time to unpack the debate, Panahi starts piling on self-reflexive elements (fans of Panahi should come to expect this). His next passenger, a man who sells bootlegged films around town, immediately recognizes Panahi for who he is, and then claims the man and woman in the opening were actors (his evidence being that one of them repeated a line used in an earlier film by Panahi). There’s no distinction between reality and fiction in the film because Panahi doesn’t provide any explanations. It could be possible that some of his passengers are real, while others might be fake. It doesn’t really matter since every exchange feels natural, even when it goes broad (like when two old, superstitious women treat a trip to a fountain as a life or death situation).

One of Panahi’s greatest skills as a filmmaker is how he can weave such dense and thematically strong material into a film that can feel light on its feet. The questions of crime and punishment brought up at the beginning echoes throughout, like when a man didn’t report people who stole from him because he knew they were poor and acting out of desperation. It’s easy to interpret these conversations as pointed criticisms of Iran’s different institutions, but sometimes it’s easier to take them as just highly entertaining and funny scenes. Case in point: Panahi’s niece after he picks her up from school, who explains her school assignment where she has to make a film that follows Iran’s censorship rules. Her sassy, no bullshit attitude when it comes to talking with her uncle makes her immediately likable, and one of the film’s true highlights. Panahi must have realized the best way to go after his country’s censorship laws was to let a young child take them down for him.

And even though Jafar Panahi’s Taxi has plenty to enjoy and laugh at, it’s in the later sections of the film that Panahi reminds viewers of the risks he’s taking. He may be able to freely drive around the city, but the unsettling final scene puts the emphasis back on how dangerous Panahi’s harmless act of moviemaking is within his country (there are also no credits for the cast or crew aside from Panahi in order to keep them safe). Yet Jafar Panahi’s Taxi is an optimistic film in some ways. Much like the two films before it, it’s a sign of how even the biggest restrictions can’t pin down creativity. And if this is how creative Panahi can get when held prisoner, we can only imagine what he’ll be capable of once he gets his freedom. Hopefully that freedom will come sooner rather than later.

Five years after being banned from filmmaking for 20 years, Jafar Panahi returns with his third film since his sentencing with Jafar Panahi’s Taxi. With his first post-sentencing film This is Not a Film taking place within the confines of his apartment, and his follow-up Closed Curtain taking place in a vacation home, Taxi sees Panahi making his most audacious protest yet by heading out into the streets of Tehran. Panahi plays a taxi driver, and to get around “directing” he lets the film play out through small cameras mounted in the car on the dashboard and back seat. Over the course of a day, Panahi picks up a variety of eccentric passengers who double as conduits to bring up issues of morality, religion, crime, censorship, and a whole host of other important issues. For those familiar with Panahi’s films none of this should come as a surprise; for those who aren’t as familiar, Taxi should act as a terrific entry point for people new to Panahi’s incredible acts of defiance.

Right from the opening, where two passengers argue over what the punishment for thieves should be (he says the death penalty, she says not the death penalty), it’s easy to get hooked in by Panahi’s ability to approach such an important theme through a conversation that flows so naturally. But it turns out that’s just a warm-up, because Panahi brings in more characters and stories that keep Taxi going at a fast, entertaining pace: a man selling bootleg videos who recognizes Panahi for who he really is, two superstitious old women trying to stay alive, and a motorcycle accident that winds up dealing with women’s rights are just a few situations Panahi finds himself in. But the best part of the film has to be Panahi’s niece (Note: due to the film being made illegally, no one in the film gets credited except for Panahi), whose no-nonsense attitude and attempts to make a short film that fits the government’s guidelines for an acceptable film (for example: films must not contain “sordid realism”) make her easily walk away with the entire film. Beyond just being yet another astounding act of protest from Panahi, and an example of how creative one can be when restricted, Taxi is just a fun, thought-provoking movie from the beginning to its (unsettling) end.

By now all of the information surrounding This is Not a Film has been regurgitated in every review or article about it, but it’s necessary to know the context before watching it. Jafar Panahi, the Iranian director of films like Offside and The Circle, was arrested for his involvement in protests against the Iranian government. He was sentenced to six years in prison along with a 20 year ban from directing, writing, doing interviews and leaving the country. While Panahi waited under house arrest for the verdict of his appeal to come in (it was eventually rejected and the sentence was upheld), the events of This is Not a Film were recorded by documentary filmmaker Mojtaba Mirtahmasb.

So we see Panahi spend one day in his apartment while Mirtahmasb films him with a cheap camera. The reason why he invited his friend over was so Panahi could read and act out the last screenplay he finished before his arrest. As Panahi explains, the ban didn’t include acting or reading out a script so what he’s doing is technically allowed. Using pieces of tape Panahi crudely lays out the set for his screenplay and begins to extensively describe how his film would have looked. Eventually he breaks down and says “If we could tell a film, then why make a film?” before scrapping the idea of acting out his screenplay altogether.

It’s a heartbreaking moment, but it’s also why everything about This is Not a Film is so engrossing. The situation that Panahi finds himself in is one that’s impossible for people in the Western world to fully grasp which makes Panahi’s struggle riveting to watch. Amazingly, Panahi appears fine, even joking about the fact that at any time he’ll be going off to jail for 6 years. During a phone call with his lawyer who says that the best they can hope for is a slightly reduced jail sentence he jokes that he should just start packing his things no matter what.

There’s a lot more ground covered in This is Not a Film than just giving a glimpse into Panahi’s life. Panahi goes through his DVD collection and puts on his older films The Mirror, The Circle and Crimson Gold. As they play on his TV he points out how it was impossible for him to predict the way certain scenes would play out, that true cinema comes out from these scenes. Sequences like this show how ambitious This is Not a Film is. It turns into a meditation on filmmaking itself, a dissection into what makes a film and what defines it.

At the same time Panahi plays on this further by blurring the lines between reality and fiction. Some scenes feel like they’ve been staged, mainly a subplot involving a neighbour’s dog that feels like it’s too good to be true. Mirtahmasb has revealed in interviews that This is Not a Film was actually shot over four days despite being edited to look like it took place over one. Combining reality and fiction together is something that Iranian cinema has done for a long time (the closest thing I can compare this to is Abbas Kiarostami’s Close-Up), and Panahi appears to be taking this method to its extreme.

A look at an oppressed artist, a discussion on how to define films, a massive risk (the movie had to be smuggled out of Iran in a cake, and Mirtahmasb has now been imprisoned), a brave act of protest, This is Not a Film is made up of all of these things and more. If we go by the title and don’t define this as a film then it’s one of the most original and important things to come out this year.