A film that follows Gwangju in May 1980 through the eyes of a Seoul taxi driver. How it adapts a true story.
A Taxi Driver is a 2017 film directed by Jang Hoon about the May 18 Democratic Uprising in Gwangju in May 1980. The story starts when a taxi driver working in Seoul picks up a foreign passenger and ends up heading for Gwangju. Song Kang-ho plays the driver, Kim Man-seob, the German actor Thomas Kretschmann plays his passenger, a foreign journalist, and the cast also includes Yoo Hai-jin and Ryu Jun-yeol.
The film starts from the real story of the German journalist Jürgen Hinzpeter, who reported on the situation in Gwangju and made it known outside, and the taxi driver who drove him there and back. However, the on-screen driver's name and personal life, along with many scenes and turns of events, were invented or adapted for the film. It deals with real events, but it is a dramatic feature, not a documentary, and it is worth keeping that in mind. If you want to learn about the events themselves, official records and sources are the accurate place to look. Knowing that the reporting of the journalist who told the outside world about the events forms the backbone of the story helps in understanding where the film begins.
The film is carried not by someone at the centre of events but by someone who walks into the situation knowing nothing about it. At first the driver is thinking about a fare, and the audience experiences what he sees and hears in an unfamiliar city at the same pace he does. The gap between the history the audience already knows and the reality the character does not creates the tension.
This is also a film about movement. The road from Seoul to Gwangju and the routes through the city form the backbone of the story, and the cramped taxi becomes a space where the distance between the two characters shows plainly. The main thread is how two people who are at first just a passenger and a driver change their relationship by spending time in the same car. Because each change of scenery on the road also changes the characters' situation, following the shift in locations makes the structure easy to see. The fact that a taxi driver's job is to take a passenger to their destination also overlaps naturally with a story about how far the character is willing to go.
Jang Hoon also directed Rough Cut, Secret Reunion and The Front Line. He has returned again and again to stories in which two people in very different positions become entangled and their relationship shifts, and A Taxi Driver can be seen as part of that line. Song Kang-ho plays an ordinary family man with a lived-in voice and face, while Thomas Kretschmann plays a foreign journalist with whom he can hardly communicate. The premise that the two barely know each other's language means feelings come across through expressions and actions more than dialogue.
The film is made so that you can follow it without deep knowledge of the history. Still, keeping the following in mind makes the design of its scenes clearer.
Films based on real events carry strong emotion, which makes it easy to take their scenes as history. A Taxi Driver also starts from real people and events, yet some scenes were added or changed for dramatic effect. If the film sparks your interest, looking up records and public institutions' materials afterwards is a good next step. Taking the feelings the film offers and the facts the records convey separately lets you understand both more fully.
Some scenes deal with violence and loss of life, so check the rating before watching. Remembering that the film deals with events that had real victims and bereaved families is the basic attitude it asks of its audience. If someone you watch with remembers that time, it is also good to respect that the film's scenes may differ from their actual memories. For international viewers relying on subtitles, reading a short summary of the situation at the time beforehand makes the film easier to follow.
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