Taxi to the Darkside (Alex Gibney, 2007)

Alex Gibney is a man who knows how to put together a great documentary. With Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, he was able to make the world of corporate fraud and bankruptcy absolutely riveting. With Taxi to the Darkside, however, he delves into the murky world of the treatment of detainees during the Iraq war and the war on terror. Are some of these people guilty of terror? Most probably. But have some innocents also been held a treated with a complete disregard for basic military conduct in the treatment of said detainees? Most definitely.

The thing with Gibney’s documentary is he is not saying that suspected terrorists should be given an easy ride but in looking at some of the ways that many have been treated it’s hard not to be shocked. One interviewee states that he was ordered to humiliate detainees by getting them to masturbate in front of one another as a way of insulting their religious beliefs. The interviewee then argues that this would be humiliating to anyone, regardless of his or her beliefs.

It also questions the usefulness of such techniques. Is a suspect more likely to crack under extensive physical and psychological torture or are they more likely to tell you what you want to hear I order for the torture to stop? At the centre of it all is the case study of Dilawar, and Afghan taxi driver who was arrested on evidence that later turned out to be falsified. After five days he had been beaten so badly by his captors that he died from his wounds. It’s from here that Gibney investigates not only the case of Dilawar but also other cases that lead all the way up the chain of command to the President and his key advisors and their ways of getting around the Geneva Convention.

It’s rather shocking to say the least. Despite Gibney’s obvious Democratic sensibilities, it’s extremely difficult to argue with the facts that are given. Toward the end of the film, one interviewee asks: “Were the majority of those detained terrorists? No. Would the majority of those detained want to become a terrorist as a result of the way they’d been treated? Yes.”

Nuff said.

5/5