Hit the Road

Continuing the grand tradition of Iranian films set in cars, Hit the Road is, as it sounds, a road movie with abundant scenery from the hills and dirt roads of backcountry Iran – albeit one with a strong political undercurrent, and a chamber piece set almost entirely in the car and revolving closely around the four family members travelling.  It represents an accomplished debut from the son of Festival favourite (and frequent target of the Iranian government) Panah Panahi. 

The purpose of the trip is unclear – not a holiday? – and minor tensions soon flare between the dry-humoured, broken-legged father, garrulous mother, skulking teenager, and firecracker younger son.  It is both irreverent – the mother’s karaoke renditions of schlocky Iranian pop songs from the 70s irritate the teenage Farid and delight the younger boy – and deadly serious: the family’s destruction of sim cards on the way prompt us to realise that the family’s trip is in some way connected with or spurred by the oppression that pervades every aspect of life in Iran. “The family relationships are depicted through a torrential blend of jovial ribaldry and vulnerable confession, with doubts muttered alone and misgivings kept silent – not least because of the young boy, who’s one of the most irrepressible and exuberant wild cards in the recent cinema.

Hit the Road is a work of practical realism that stands as a manifesto for the imaginative power of observation and for the political power of the imagination.” – Richard Brody,  The New Yorker