Fleapit revisited:Hit The Road.

I'm no expert on Iranian cinema (not even close) so I don't know if Panah Panahi's Hit The Road is typical of films from that country or not. But I do know that's it been scoring great reviews from all over (well, Peter Bradshaw and Mark Kermode) and I am always curious to seek out the best cinema from around the planet.

So it was a minor disappointment that I didn't enjoy Hit The Road more than I actually did. It was beautifully shot, it was wonderfully acted, it was tender, it was moving, and, of course, I found one or two scenes incredibly sad. It was, and is, a brilliant film. It was just one I found hard to enjoy.

Partly, that's because it takes so long to get going. In that respect I was reminded of the Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan and the lengthy films he's made. 2014's Winter Sleep and his 2011 classic Once Upon A Time In Anatolia. 

Ceylan likes to build up his characters first, get us to care about them, feel like we know them, and then launch into the story. Panahi, it seems, has adopted a similar modus operandi. We've got a family. In a car. Driving across the deserts of Iran towards the border.

When they reach the border an unspoken act will take place. You can probably guess what. You know what happens at borders. Dad (Mohammad Hassan Mahjooni) is grey bearded and unkempt. Possibly unfairly, he reminded me of the infamous photo of Saddam Hussein after he'd been forced out of hiding. He's also got a broken leg, two broken hands, and toothache.

Perhaps understandably, he can easily err on the side of grouchy. Mom (Panatea Panahiha) is much better dressed - and better behaved. She likes to put the radio on and sing along to Iranian pop music. Little Brother (the ridiculously cute Rayan Sarlak) is hyperactive and would rather talk about Batman than anything else. He has a sense the rest of the family are keeping something from him - and he's right - but he doesn't know what.

Big Brother (Amin Simiar) is at the wheel of the car and he hardly says a word. The tear that gently rolls down his cheek, however, is enough to tell us that all is not well with Big Brother's life. For most of the duration of the film that's it. A family of four, and their lame dog Jessy, driving across the desert, sometimes bickering, sometimes singing songs together.

Sometimes, but very rarely, alluding to the reason for their journey. At one point they accidentally knock a cyclist (Masoud Tosifyan) off his bike so they pick him up and give him a lift. Offering him cucumbers and pistachio nuts as he opines that his hero Lance Armstrong never doped and was a victim of 'fake news'.

Eventually the family reach their destination. It's beautiful - sheep, mountains, shooting stars - but the men who arrive on motorbikes are unsettling and whatever is to be gained from this trip will, it becomes abundantly apparent, be paid for.

Hit The Road does a brilliant job in showing how painful ordinary lives are and can be, especially when those lives are lived out under cruel regimes. There is light relief in the form of songs, food, and, who could forget?, Batman and Panahiha plays Mom in a way that should be universally recognisable to all mothers everywhere. She loves her sons and she fears for them but she also wants them to wear suitable clothing for the weather.

There were one or two slightly surreal touches that, for me, jarred with the overall cinema verite style applied by Panahi but, ultimately, Hit The Road was a powerful and realistic story about what a family must do to get by.