Santa Cruz Film Festival 2009

Abu Laila is a taxi driver. Actually he’s a judge, but that’s only part of the story. Veteran Palestinian filmmaker Rashid Masharawi has crafted a comically existential fable about a man trying to live a normal life in a world surrounded by chaos.

Today is the birthday of Abu Laila’s daughter, Laila. The family plans to celebrate it at 8:00 tonight so Abu Laila has to be sure to pick up the cake and buy her a present by then. Leaving for his day driving a taxi, little does he know that today is just going to be one of those days. First stop, the magistrate’s office where he goes every day navigating a maddening bureaucracy related to a government post he’d been invited to take. This frustration stays with him the rest of the day as he becomes involved in one absurd situation after another. From a running joke about a mobile phone left in his cab to winding through city streets avoiding protest marches to an incident involving a car bombing, Abu Laila’s day is treated with a surrealist humor. Eschewing violence, Masharawi delivers us to Abu Laila’s last straw moment in a very real, human, and strange way.

Shot in Ramallah, the footage of this mysterious city is beautiful and immersive. Masharawi succeeds in wrapping us into his world and expressing its spirit and life. Despite the distant sound of helicopters and explosions never letting us forget where we are, Mashawari’s Ramallah is a brave city of dreams, love, passion, chaos and absurdity. The real question is, though, does Abu Laila make it home in time?