A Taxi Ride to the Truth

It is always a difficult enterprise to take contemporaneous events and to present them in a documentary format that maintains the integrity of the documentary. “Taxi to the Dark Side,” it is clear, has a viewpoint that makes a firmly critical judgment on the part of the United States government and military in its use of torture during the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. As a point of departure for the wider message, the film tells the story of rural Afghan taxi driver Dilawar, who in 2001 was kidnapped, arrested and detained at the U.S.’s Bagram Air Base. The atrocities of suffering and humiliation that are revealed in the case of Dilawar and others at the hands of the U.S. military personnel, is shocking and graphic to an extent that its legitimacy, while hard to accept, cannot be denied.

Despite the fact that the film does not offer an opposing viewpoint, it is hard to find the information presented anything but objective and horrifyingly honest. “Taxi to the Dark Side,” triumphs in that it humanizes and makes personal a story which otherwise could be kept foreign and distant. After viewing, there is nowhere to hide from the shame surrounding these events and there remains only the profound feeling of a guilty conscience and the guilt of our leaders.

Photographs of Dilawar and footage of his home and family reveal the story of a man who would otherwise be lost to history. His story, presented in the film is a reminder that the inhumane and unjust destruction of any one life is reason enough to claim war unjust and unnecessary. In a style that typifies recent documentary work but that makes verifiable the story it weaves, “Taxi to the Dark Side” employs interviews with the actual military personnel who were deployed at the various detainment camps and who carried out the torturous acts that occurred within them. This aspect of the film provides those accused of serious offenses to speak, as they do to their own defense, guilt, and to the ultimate responsibility of the United States military and government. While it is important to note that editing always plays a role in how words and messages are delivered, the testimony of these individuals reveals quite clearly their unpreparedness and the lack of moral judgment that is bred in the military today.

Footage of interviews and statements made by senior government and military officials previously viewed, is shown in a new and revealing light and in this context appears newly sinister and appallingly immoral. Interviews with the actual lawyers and legal counsel of the government and military agencies provides an object view of the illegal and inhuman actions taken by the highest leaders in disregarding the laws of justice. No interviews with these officials are presented in the film, yet this doesn’t seem a bias, for as we know actions speak louder than words.

In its brutal honesty, graphic images, and wide range of interviews “Taxi to the Dark Side” makes its case from too many sides to be deceptive or misleading. Some, even many may wish to deny the shocking brutality and disregard for human life but will only do so because the inherent truth and horror of these actions and events is too great to deny as “Taxi to the Dark Side,” takes a journey to bring injustice to light.