Allegory about Iran buried under shroud of censorship
In a scene from the new Iranian film “Hit the Road,” the eldest of two sons says his favorite movie is “2001: A Space Odyssey” because, among other reasons, the film ends with a character’s transformation after going through a black hole. Later, the family’s patriarch, while next to a campfire, looks at the vast night sky and tells his son a story. As he speaks, the father and son are suddenly transposed against the night sky, shrinking smaller and smaller until it seems that they, too, enter a black hole.
It’s a vague allegory, but its message isn’t so much lost in translation as buried under a shroud of censorship. Like most Iranian films — at least the ones that make it to the United States — “Hit the Road” seems to have something to say about the vast potential of Iran’s people, and how, for some reason (its authoritarian government) the potential will remain just that.
Director Panah Panahi structures his movie, which won the Critics New Directors Award at the recently completed San Francisco International Film Festival, in an interesting way: It is a road trip across Iran, but its purpose is not immediately apparent. Instead, a worried mother (Pantea Panahiha) and father (Hasan Majuni) discuss how they will explain the purpose of the trip to their hyperactive youngest son (Rayan Sarlak).
So, in a way, much of the film is not about the purpose, but the cover story. “What a way to bring up our son,” says the mother. “By telling lies.”
The road trip has two purposes. One is apparent early on: The family dog, Jessy (the only member of this family whose name we ever know), has an infection and needs to be put down. They can’t figure out how they can break it to their son.
The main purpose involves the mysterious fate of their older son (Amin Simiar). They are taking him somewhere, but where and why? The first cover story told to his younger brother is that he is going away to get married. But you know that’s not so — the near-constant dour expression on the older brother’s face doesn’t foreshadow anything so joyous.
If Panahi’s name sounds familiar, you might be thinking of the great Jafar Panahi, one of the leading lights of the Iranian New Wave of the 1990s and early 2000s and Panah’s father. His “The White Balloon” (1995) was the first Iranian film to receive a major award at the Cannes Film Festival, and he knows a thing or two about censorship.
Jafar Panahi was once briefly imprisoned for his anti-government activism, and during a years-long house arrest — during which he was not allowed to make a film — he made a movie titled “This Is not a Film,” which was smuggled out of Iran on a USB drive reportedly hidden in a birthday cake.
Panah Panahi, making his feature debut with “Hit the Road,” definitely inherited his old man’s trouble-making genes.
His eye for composition is accomplished, but the movie meanders and the pacing sometimes drags. The problem, of course, is the filmmaker holds back the relevant information that would keep a viewer engaged until the end.
At one point, the family picks up a cyclist who has crashed to give him ride. The cyclist gets to the heart of the matter:
“We create boundaries to avoid thinking about transgression,” he says. “We are good people. But the boundaries we have created, we stop thinking and push it all into the unconscious. So we can’t analyze. It’s already too late.”