Hit the Road

"Long takes statically home in on the characters, who are often inside the vehicle in close vicinity to the camera, whose unspoken emotion and poignant expression is what audience dwells on. As an impending departure is on the horizon, feigned playfulness flakes off a mother's face and bares irrepressible sorrow; a father's habitual sulkiness morphs into resigned tenderness and advice-dispensing, yet his prolong incapacitation (with one injured leg in plaster cast) might take on a more figurative signification here. The only constant is the younger son, whose bratty, sassy cuteness inclines to get under one's skin in no time.

However, when the chips are down, a fixed wide shot keeps the emotional leave-taking in the yonder, a scenic composition with people reduced to ciphers, but its effect is no less impactful, the mother's scurrying desperation is all the more visceral in one's imagination. After a botched last goodbye, HIT THE ROAD finishes with a threnody for the moribund pet dog, vicariously it is also for the departed, but the lip-syncing gimmick seems to push the film towards mawkishness."

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If you wanna watch a movie with real human beings as characters and not caricatures, this is your movie. This is a drama with comedy elements. Deadpan humour some times, heart-warming some others. There is a dividing line between "intellectual" and "highbrow". Most artistic movies cross that line. This one didn't. These are real people and their real problems. But there is no misery here, not doom and gloom. There is hope and love, whilst the movie remains heartfelt. Darkness/Light, Cry/Laughter, Hope/Despair. Balancing eternally.

I could never imagine that a kid who yells and screams all the time, would be such an adorable character. Every actor here is excellent, especially the father.

I can't rate it higher because it's not the most interesting movie ever, it's a simple road movie, not something mindblowing. (Still, it kept my interest). But its simplicity is a positive thing, simultaneously. There is a moment in the middle of it, shall i say, pure magic, you will know when you watch it. Even if you don't like this movie, there is no way you won't love this scene.

"Warn the people, he's an idiot!" Dad (Hasan Majuni)

So it goes for six-year-old Little Brother (Rayan Sarlak, watch for him in the future) as dad prepares anyone outside the family that they have a dynamo for a child, whose older brother is quite the opposite in his quietude. The family is on a secret journey in Panah Panahi's debut Hit the Road, set in the bleak plains of Iran but full of family shenanigans, not quite as light as in Little Miss Sunshine, but having the same surprises of joy and sorrow plaguing any road journey in film, and sometimes in life itself not on the screen but in our own vans.

Reflecting the Iranian New Wave with cinematography and background worthy of Waiting for Godot (even one shot with a single tree against a barren landscape), Hit the Road is about an uncertain destination to the northern border with an uncertain fate awaiting travelers, especially in a world as chaotic as Iran. It would seem the family is not only delivering but also escaping a fate they only partially control.

The shifting tones from comedy to drama--the boy without his cell and the older brother without a future-- show a young director already in charge of his craft.

Emblematic of the riotous life of a very bright but eccentric family is the contradictory relationship between dad and Little Brother, who banter in a beautiful fantasy scene about Batman while Little can equally be chastised for being loud and provocative (he's precocious, if you couldn't tell). Also telling is the long wide shot by cinematographer Amin Jafari where something quietly tragic is happening, set on a riverbank evocative of Ingmar Bergman's iconic Seventh Seal long shots.

Oddly-placed musical numbers are a welcome respite from the growing sense of doom, and another clue to the happiness that may bless the family, if not on this journey.

As lovely Mom (Pantea Panahiha) provides the moderating influence among the warring factions of the family, she also carries the melancholy of one who knows the separation and tragedy that fate will eventually deliver along life's journey.

Hit the Road is a family-trip masterpiece from a 37-year-old director whose legendary director dad would be proud. Among the laughter and tears is a common thread for humanity: Just keep going.

I saw hit the road at Cannes Film Festival and with no prior expectations, was rewarded with a wonderful film, complete with memorable performances from an extremely talented cast. Beautiful and varied landscape shots intersperse the interior of the car where much of the film takes place. Humour (namely from the captivating young actor Rayan Sarlak), well chosen music and great writing, help to balance out the darker undertone of the movie. Mature, bold and most definitely worth watching. Bravo!

Excellent humor.

A film full of emotions, without demureness, alternating moods -like those of children-, enchanting landscape and directorial perfection.

Panah Panahi, seems to follow in the footsteps of his father, and his predecessors (e.g. Kiarostami), adding his own modern view.