Taxi

Ajaz Aslam and James Haddow are two taxi drivers working in and around Birmingham in the UK. Ajaz works nights while trying to get a better job by studying an MA during the day, mainly because he finds the job hard on his family life. James is a poet who wants to be on the after-dinner circuit and drives mostly days – he is separated from his wife and daughter. Both men talk about the job, their experiences and their overall aims.

For the Screen West Midlands funding stream "First Cut", 2004 was the year of the documentary and, yet again I held some vague aspiration to actually put my money where my mouth was and take part, however I never managed to get around to it! Seeing the end products, I'm not sure I would have had anything to really make a film about because the films are mostly pretty personal pieces. Taxi looks at two taxi drivers and my temptation would have been to try and draw wider points out about the life, however this doesn't, instead looking specifically at two drivers. For the majority of the film it is very specific to those two men, although it does allude to wider experiences within the profession.

It is quite interesting actually and the two men do make for an interesting ten minutes, but it is limited in its impact and it didn't stay with me after it ended. The camera work is the standard front passenger seat stuff, although the editing was effective both in terms of content and cutting between the two cars. Overall this was about average for this years First Cut short films – personal and interesting yet not managing to really stay with you for very long after it finishes.