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Portuguese director Susana Nobre’s second feature and Berlinale debut, No Táxi do Jack (Jack’s Ride), offers a somewhat languid look into economically downtrodden Portugal, but finds an understated gem in its resilient protagonist.
The film follows Joaquim (Joaquim Veríssimo Calçada), a 63 year-old pushed out of his job to early retirement who must prove he’s looking for work in order to keep his unemployment benefits. On his half-hearted search through rural Portugal Joaquim narrates his story of emigration to New York City in the ‘70s, where he spent many years working as a taxi and limo driver. Merging fiction and documentary, the film was inspired by Nobre’s work at an unemployment centre where she met Joaquim. In an interview with Berlinale Forum program coordinator Anna Hoffman, Nobre described how she was struck by the absurdity of Joaquim’s situation and the “scramble for stamps” that are used to verify a person’s search for employment.
While the film’s intentionally languid pacing mirrors Portugal’s economic stall and provides a gentle critique of the country’s unemployment bureaucracy, it lingers a little too long on daily mundanity. Shots of idle industrial sites, empty small towns reminiscent of a pandemic lockdown, and calm countryside views offer a nice thematic contrast to Joaquim’s recollections of bustling New York but leave the viewer drifting somewhat restlessly, particularly once we realize Joaquim has a trove of interesting stories to be mined.
For his part, Joaquim doesn’t seem too fussed about driving from region to region in search of stamps. As he tells one potential employer, “I’ll retire in three months, so I’m not that interested.” There’s also a sense of nostalgic comfort in being behind the wheel again as Joaquim reminisces about his driving days and looks familiarly into the rear-view mirror as if we’re just a few more passengers in his taxi. As long as he can collect his stamps, Joaquim is content to drive through the Portuguese countryside, take in the stillness around him, share moments with his friend Rato and wife Maria, and relate stories of New York to the viewer.
It’s these shared moments, these glimpses into Joaquim’s past and present life that pull the viewer in and provide welcome intrigue in Jack’s Ride. Joaquim has a quiet steadiness and a humble empathy about him that invite us to enjoy our ride with him, listening as he recounts his arrival in New York with only $300 to his name and how he became a taxi and limo driver, chauffeuring the likes of Jackie Kennedy and Wall Street players around town. His modest roots and desire to connect with people are presented in moments captured throughout the film, most notably among them his touching friendship with Rato in Portugal. A brief glimpse into Joaquim’s apparent dark side baffles more than gives us pause, particularly because of the melodramatic way the memory is recreated, as if to emulate a scene from a mafia movie.
Selected for the 71st Berlinale as part of the Forum program, a category showcasing avant-garde films, Jack’s Ride firmly establishes its rejection of narrative and documentary conventions from the get-go: in the opening shot, Nobre sets up her camera towards her offscreen subject and hits record before promptly reenacting her real-life meeting with Joaquim. Nobre’s particular style of interweaving fiction and documentary has mixed success; it’s most effective and aesthetically creative when capturing Joaquim’s drives, alternating between his past and present, illuminating his face in the reddish-purple glow of New York at night only to pull back and reveal it’s all a rear projection on a set complete with visible crew members. Less effective are some of the reenactments which feel inauthentic and forced — the one in which Joaquim threatens an ex-friend mafia style leaps to mind.
Levity is added to the film by way of Joaquim’s loud “Elvis Presley” look (complete with Elvis hair, a leather jacket, and bright patterned shirts) and his particular choice of ride, a Mercedes Elegance. A low-angle shot of our Elvis lookalike standing in an American bar plays humorously like a cover photo for an old magazine riffing on the American Dream.
Part road trip, part story of friendship, part journey down memory lane, and part critique, Jack’s Ride doesn’t quite know where to park itself, but in Joaquim we find the thread of steady resilience that strings the pieces together. The film ends on a hopeful note of human connection with a gathering of people emerging from a seemingly sleepy Portuguese town to simply enjoy each other’s company — as if to say we’re still here, we’ll weather tough times together. A timely reminder to us all.
Score: C
© 2021. UniversalCinema Mag.