Review: Panah Panahi's Debut ‘Hit the Road’ And Its Lighthearted Tragedy

Little Brother, as always, won’t shut up. Dad joins him in his nonsense, riling up the sick dog in the back. Mom scolds them all. Only Big Brother is silent. Writer/Director Panah Panahi’s debut feature Hit the Road (2022) is a subtle, clever road trip comedy on the backdrop of heartbreaking loss and societal strife. This doesn’t feel as much a mishmash of two genres as a unique, consistent tone of both melancholy and levity. The characters joke, sing, fight, and get on each other’s nerves, all while the dark cloud of their destination hangs over their heads. At times, the film is silly, especially through an outstanding performance by 6-year-old Rayan Sarlak (Little Brother), who livens the tired, jaded adults of the family. At other times, it presents us with immeasurable grief; at other times still, it transcends its games and its sorrows to engulf the audience in a mystical ambiguity.

Hit the Road centers on an Iranian family in a rental car, driving across a vast, diverse terrain and pushing each other’s buttons. They travel to the Turkish border to smuggle the adult Big Brother (Amin Simiar) out of the country. Panahi (as the writer/director) leaves out the details of the family’s circumstances and their backstories, which proves to be very effective. The story is propelled solely by the characters’ agency, centering the film on their experience during the venture. They seem at first like archetypes: the annoying Little Brother, the tired Dad (Mohammad Hassan Madjooni), the worried Mom (Pantea Panahiha), and the Big Brother with a secret. Panahi’s sharp dialogue instead reveals a lifetime of unspoken history between the characters, creating a specificity that keeps the film subjective even as forces outside their control tear them apart.

While the narrative revolves around the family and their journey, the film uses Iran’s beautiful natural environments to emphasize their loss of agency. Dynamic color ranges and expansive landscapes showcase grasslands, deserts, and mountains, becoming increasingly remote as the family approaches their destination. They become tiny figures; their emotional plight is barely visible in the frame. The settings reach a surreal majesty that blankets their anxiety to produce a bittersweet serenity. The beauty of the sense of place contradicts the sadness of the narrative, a theme that Panahi discusses in an interview with the Singapore Film Festival. Panahi describes the task of creating a balance between many opposites: cynicism and sentimentality, comedy and tragedy, family members that foil each other. Even the music, chosen to create nostalgia from his years as an Iranian kid, often has lyrics of separation that contradict their fun and catchy tunes.

Panahi laments the state of independent cinema in Iran and the difficulty filmmakers (including his own father) have in producing and screening their films. Distribution and even filming require an arduous process of approval and permits from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Panahi avoided censorship of his production by shooting the whole film in a car, which provides “a level of security,” but it ultimately didn’t pass the censors (not surprising, considering its topics of illegal smuggling and government surveillance). He is saddened by the knowledge that Hit the Road will only be accessible to audiences outside of Iran, and most of his beloved Iranians will never experience this expression of so many of their journeys. When asked about a connection to politics, Panahi chuckles, but acknowledges the film’s complicated relationship with Iran. In its final scenes, it doesn’t hesitate to break our hearts again after the characters separate. It remains subjective to them, leaving you with a strangely comfortable uncertainty. The son’s future is unknowable to the rest of the family, and vice versa, as they both are to us. The deed is done, and the adventure is over, and all we are left with is the open road ahead.

Watch Hit the Road on Showtime Anytime, FuboTV, Kino Now, VUDU, or Kanopy.