Review by
Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Panah Panahi
Starring: Hasan Majuni, Pantea Panahiha, Rayan Sarlak, Amin Simiar
Can you think of anything worse than an extended cross country car journey
in the searing heat with your nearest and dearest? For injury to insult,
throw in an unwell dog and an ailing patriarch, too. Unimaginable misery?
Courtesy of Panah Panahi’s feature length comedy/drama debut,
Hit the Road, the dreadful concept has been authentically realised in all its nerve
picking discomfort. Upon the mysterious journey which this family -
comprised of Mom (Pantea Panahiha), Dad (Hasan Majuni),
Little Brother (Rayan Sarlak) and taciturn Big Brother (Amin Similar) - are embarking on there are no particular blow ups, instead just the
perfectly captured irritability of travelling in enclosed spaces, of being
neither here nor there, with the conversation having run out miles back
and only the dread anticipation of arrival to occupy the mind.
Yet, as the film continues, perhaps there is a rationale for the pointed
silences, held in slightly-too-long lingering shots, which punctuate the
otherwise indie-ish comedy tone of Hit the Road. As implied by the nominal nature of the cast list, this is a film which
explicates familial links, and it eventually transpires that the unit are
rushing to the Turkish border to smuggle Big Brother out of the country,
for reasons which are vague but have implications of persecution. Hence
the all-inclusive population of the car, sick animal and all. We are never
privy to the specifics of Big Brother’s exodus, as writer/director Panahi
recognises this is an irrelevance: Big Brother could be any young Iranian
man or woman seeking asylum, suffering the same regime which has kept Dad
under house arrest for years. The getaway is a factor of life, which the
film underlines by the gentle, quotidian nature of both the journey and
the film.
The family do bicker, and it is hot (the way in which
Hit the Road captures the oppressive warmth of a car with
janky A/C is quite something), but there are also moments of lovingly
observed joy: Little Brother (Sarlak could be the film’s MVP, although
your mileage may vary with this kid, being a hyperactive child prone to
outbursts and misplaced excitements) plays the piano drawn on Dad’s cast,
there are family singalongs (perhaps the only palatable aspect of long car
journeys, after all). All of which make the manifestations of men in
burlap masks, the wide-angle framing of the car against the devastatingly
barren landscape, even more insidious...
The film it most reminded me of was that overrated
Little Miss Sunshine, the indie everyone went nuts over when such distinctions between
mainstream and independent cinema still existed (i.e., when people still
went to the movies to see smaller films). But unlike that interminably
smug little film, Hit the Road has a winning naturalism, a
genuine sense of emotion and dignity. This is chiefly communicated by the
wonderful Pantea Panahiha, whose matriarch is beautiful and stoic, driving
the car and holding the disparate males of the family together as she
internally comes to terms with soon losing one of them. The actor is, of
course, the director’s own mother, giving Hit the Road a
bittersweet authenticity that travels beyond the narrative.
Hit the Road is on UK/ROI VOD now and MUBI UK from October 20th.
