Hit the Road

Noth­ing says Iran­ian New Wave like cramped road trips, mes­meris­ing wide shots, long takes, a leisure­ly pace, child actors and decep­tive­ly low nar­ra­tive stakes that esca­late into much more com­pli­cat­ed conun­drums. While con­tain­ing all the ingre­di­ents men­tioned above, Panah Panahi’s beau­ti­ful­ly craft­ed debut fea­ture is com­po­si­tion­al­ly robust, with phe­nom­e­nal cam­er­a­work, grad­ing and block­ing to boot.

The film’s polit­i­cal agen­da and over­all cri­tique of the predica­ments of Iran­ian soci­ety and pol­i­tics remain elu­sive enough as to be able to cir­cum­vent the strin­gent aus­pices of gov­ern­ment cen­sors. In this affect­ing film, Panahi’s use of dra­mat­ic space firm­ly places him with­in the move­ment that his father – the great Jafar Panahi – is revered for. The styl­is­tic and nar­ra­tive influ­ence of his father, as well as his men­tor Abbas Kiarosta­mi, are both palpable.

Hit the Road opens in media res and keeps its impe­tus ambigu­ous through­out. We fol­low a fam­i­ly dri­ving down a long desert high­way with nos­tal­gic ​’70s-era Iran­ian pop music pro­vid­ing the sound­track to their jour­ney. We learn that they have sold their home and have left every­thing behind – all except their ail­ing dog Jessie, who joins them on the trip. Their jour­ney is set to cul­mi­nate in an attempt to smug­gle their eldest son, Farid (Amin Simi­ar), out of Iran.

The con­stant­ly upbeat younger son (Rayan Sar­lak) remains com­plete­ly obliv­i­ous to the sit­u­a­tion, and exudes a man­ic ener­gy that’s equal parts grat­ing and delight­ful. At no point are we promised any res­o­lu­tion, or giv­en any clear indi­ca­tion as to why this jour­ney has to take place. We remain mere­ly one step ahead of the naïve younger son. All we have is a glimpse into a fam­i­ly on the precipice of some­thing that’s under­pinned by a lurk­ing trep­i­da­tion. We’re left to guess what that unseen some­thing is, who these peo­ple are and where exact­ly they’re going.

Yet Panahi’s film apt­ly draws inti­ma­cy from mean­der­ing con­ver­sa­tions and gen­er­ates sus­pense from the seem­ing­ly mun­dane, while it main­tains an aura of sur­re­al whim­sy through its con­stant recourse to irrev­er­ent humour. To retain the secrets of the plot and make the film expe­ri­ence as com­pelling as pos­si­ble, Panahi deft­ly oscil­lates between sar­don­ic humour and engross­ing tragedy, suc­cess­ful­ly elud­ing any nar­ra­tive frustration.

The film’s ten­der emo­tion­al core is its great­est asset, which is enhanced by inven­tive tonal shifts and com­ple­ment­ed by incred­i­bly fleshed-out char­ac­ters, a uni­form­ly bril­liant cast and nat­u­ral­is­tic dia­logue that keeps it from lurch­ing into the ter­rain of ster­ile real­ism. Panahi even weaves in a heart­felt sequence of mag­i­cal real­ism prompt­ed by a (non-spoil­er friend­ly) dis­cus­sion on 2001: A Space Odyssey between the father (Hasan Maju­ni) and younger son, who are framed lying on the grass, which slow­ly trans­forms into a star­ry night’s sky.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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