Taxi to the Dark Side

Overview

Taxi to the Dark Side examines US policy on torture and interrogation, specifically the CIA's use of torture and their research into sensory deprivation. The film includes discussions against the use of torture by political and military opponents, as well as the defense of such methods; attempts by Congress to uphold the standards of the Geneva Convention forbidding torture; and popularization of the use of torture techniques in TV series such as 24.

Plot

The documentary background to the death of Dilawar, an Afghan peanut farmer, who gave up farming to become a taxi driver, and who died after several days of beating at Bagram detention center.

Dilawar left his home of Yakubi in eastern Afghanistan in the autumn of 2002, investing his family money in a new taxi to make money in a larger city. On 1 December 2002 he and three passengers were handed over to US military officials by a local Afghan warlord, accused of organising an attack on Camp Salerno. The warlord was later found guilty of the attack himself, but had been ingratiating himself (for $1000 per person) by handing over alleged terrorists.

Dilawar was held at the prison at Bagram Air Base, and given the prisoner number BT421. Chained from the ceiling, he received multiple attacks on his thighs, a standard technique viewed as "permissible" and non-life-threatening. It is likely that the severe attack caused a blood clot which then killed him. His official death certificate created by the US military to pass to his family, with his body, was marked "homicide". Medical conclusion stated that Dilawar's legs were "pulpified" and, had he lived, would have required amputation.

The film explores the background of increasingly sanctioned "torture" since 9/11 in contravention of the Geneva Convention and looks at the exposures of Abu Graib.

Interviews include Tim Golden of The New York Times who brought the case into the international spotlight, and Moazzam Begg, a British citizen imprisoned at the same time, and witness to the events. Military interviewees include Damien Corsetti the main interrogator, and Sgt Anthony Morden. Cpt Christopher Beiring explains how he was the only person charged (charged with derliction of duty).

The documentary claims that of the over 83,000 people incarcerated by US forces in Afghanistan up to 2007, 93 percent were captured by local militiamen and exchanged for US bounty payments. Also that 105 detainees had died in captivity and that 37 of these deaths had been officially classified as homicides up to 2007.

The film also looks at Guantánamo Bay and how the same techniques were implemented there.

Release

The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 28, 2007.

Reception and awards

Taxi to the Dark Side appeared on some critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008. Premiere magazine named it the fifth best film of 2008, and Bill White of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer named it the seventh-best film of 2008. The film also scored 100% for critic approval, out of 91 reviews, on Rotten Tomatoes.

It was named by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as one of 15 films on its documentary feature Oscar shortlist in November 2007, and won the Oscar on February 24, 2008. In his acceptance speech for the "Best Documentary Feature" Academy Award, Gibney said:

This is dedicated to two people who are no longer with us, Dilawar, the young Afghan taxi driver, and my father, a navy interrogator who urged me to make this film because of his fury about what was being done to the rule of law. Let’s hope we can turn this country around, move away from the dark side and back to the light.

It also won a Peabody Award in 2007 "for its sober, meticulous argument that what happened to a hapless Afghani was not an aberration but, rather, the inevitable result of a consciously approved, widespread policy."

Controversies and legal disputes

In June 2007, the Discovery Channel bought the rights to broadcast Taxi to the Dark Side. However, in February 2008, it made public its intention never to broadcast the documentary due to its controversial nature. HBO then bought rights to the film and announced that it would be broadcast in September 2008, after which the Discovery Channel announced it would broadcast Taxi to the Dark Side in 2009.

In June 2008, Gibney's company filed for arbitration, arguing that THINKFilm failed to properly distribute and promote the film following its release and Oscar win.