User:Narmin mammadova

Taxi Ballad is a first attempt for Daniel Joseph to direct feature film. Youssef moves to Beirut in the hope of becoming the best taxi driver in the city, but is quickly disillusioned. While driving through the streets at night, he meets a bored American pilates instructor named Jordan, who is equally bored with her life and career. They form an unlikely bond, as he shares with her nostalgic stories from times past.

The story is of Beirut as told through Youssef’s (Talal El-Jordi) taxi’s journeys, and by Youssef himself to an American woman called Jordan (Karina Logue). Each character has their own world. The only thing we learn about their worlds comes from what emerges in the taxi, from an ironic twist. One passenger is a foul-mouthed trickster, harassing every woman that passes by. Another is a female musician who takes the taxi to Gemmayzeh. A third is an old woman who Youssef decides to drop off when he is stuck in a traffic jam, which results in them engaging in a row. Everything depends on Youssef's whims, the way in which he receives those passengers, and what they represent to him. He is the central figure around whom revolve the many characters who fulfill the film’s claim to be a comedy. Youssef's story, which begins with his childhood in the north Lebanon, followed by his rural life during the civil war, and then his arrival in the capital, is the basis of the film. Flashbacks take us between his childhood, his passengers’ stories, and Youssef's present life. Comedy is invoked in the film when Youssef goes back in memory in response to Jordan’s promptings, and we are taken from one character to another and one "funny" incident to another. The movie draws heavily on these incidents for laughs: the invincible Carlo, who people would arrive from all over to challenge in a fight, his father who abandoned his mother for Las Vegas, Youssef stealing money from shrines to the Virgin Mary in neighboring villages, and then his romance and his strange fate as a taxi driver. We get to know all this through the childhood of Youssef. He remains outside the comic context, whether as a child or as an adult, all the way to his dream of merely becoming the best taxi driver in Beirut. Youssef will face many dilemmas: he is tense and will experience failure in love, and misunderstanding by others of his simple aspiration to sit behind the steering wheel of his taxi and roam the streets of Beirut at night. Under no circumstances is he a comic character, despite the fact that the film wants to impose that quality on him. In search of comedy, the long flashbacks that take us to Youssef’s village and his childhood provide contrast with his current life in Beirut. But the constant recalling of comical characters from the village is overdone. The idea behind Taxi Ballad is to juxtapose qualities such as simplicity and comedy. Nobody understands Youssef, the simple man, except for an American sports trainer.