Synopsis and Review of the Documentary Taxi to the Dark Side

Dilawar, an Afghan taxi driver, was considered an honest and kind man by the people of his rustic village. So when he was detained by the U.S military one afternoon, after picking up three passengers, denizens wondered why. Why was this innocent man randomly chosen to be held in prison, and, especially, without trial? Five days after his arrest, Dilawar mysteriously died in his Bagram prison cell. His death came within a week of another mysterious death of a detainee at Bagram. The conclusion, with autopsy evidence, was that the former taxi driver and the detainee who passed away before him, had died due to sustained injuries inflicted at the prison by U.S. soldiers.

The torture in Bagram occurred in 2002, before the atrocity at Abu Ghraib. Thus, the Bush administration was not only aware of the inhumane treatment of detainees, most of which were innocent, but also endorsed it as a technique for attaining information. U.S. soldiers are interviewed throughout the documentary expressing regret over the torture and inhumane treatment of the detainees, nevertheless asserting that it was the top commanders who issued the practice of torture. Moreover, soldiers were pressured to acquire intelligence information which compelled them to detain the thousands of people and use inhumane strategies against them.

The torture by the soldiers on the prisoners was reminiscent of the Stanford Prison Experiment in which random volunteers took the role of either prisoner or guard which resulted in the abuse of prisoners by guards and subsequently, prisoner derangement. The conclusion was the "guards" and "prisoners" adhered to their respective definitions due human nature. One soldier who was interviewed claimed that being put in insane situations caused the soldiers to become insane and behave in a deranged manner. But whether it is in human nature to perpetrate atrocities akin to the ones at Abu Ghraib and Bagram is up for debate.

The film also emphasizes on the use of psychological torture or soft torture which is just as destructive as physical torture. First practiced by the Soviet Union, soft torture was adopted by the CIA as an effective (and surreptitious) method of getting detainees to profess any information by leaving the subject uninhibited, releasing any psychoanalytical or subconscious thoughts.

A familiar scene when watching the detainees of Guantanamo Bay is goggles, an orange jumpsuit, headphones (which serve to play repetitive vulgar messages), and a respiratory mask. This is called sensory deprivation which includes sitting in a dark, silent room void of human contact or touching anyone including oneself.

Other soft forms of torture include but are not limited sleep deprivation, forced standing for several hours in one position with arms outstretched across, and extreme heat or cool conditions. The actors and actresses of the film who reenacted the scene of Mohammed Qatani, a Guantanamo Bay detainee suspected of conspiring with the September 11 hijackers, express agony and trauma after trying to imitate the tortuous scenes as they were so psychologically impairing. Much of the scene was cut out due to being extremely disturbing.

The treatment of detainees explains why Guantanamo Bay is in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as opposed to the United States; Cuban law would not apply, neither would U.S. law. This suggests the intention of torture prior to establishment of the prison itself.

Quite the contrary. The film denotes that torture of any kind, physical or psychological, does not serve as an effective method of interrogation. When confronted with dogs or abuse, a subject's instinct would be to blurt out any claim, regardless of its authenticity.

A "dark side" to the film is its frequent use of naked images of tortured detainees at Abu Ghraib, performing the lewd, degrading behaviors as demanded by the soldiers. Such clips last for about a minute, which, although highly disturbing, serve to enforce the film's message of the U.S. endorsement and practice of inhumanity and torture. Torture against men is exclusively depicted throughout the film with no representation of how women are treated. This may be because fewer women than men are detained. Taxi to the Dark Side is still in the process of editing, that said, only clips of the documentary have been shown as of yet. Nonetheless, what has been shown thus far suggests that the film invites a revolutionary and transformative reflection on the essence of human rights as well as the true intention of the forces behind the War on Terror.