Tag: Iranian film

HIT THE ROAD (2022) – Review

Ah, with the slowly rising temps and with most schools getting ready to finish u[ their “grade years”, many families are hearing the call of the open highway. Maybe more so than other forms of mass transportation, driving may be the best option with new “variants’ popping up . But long hours in such “close quarters’ can certainly put a strain on the old “family dynamic”. And that’s probably true with families all around the world. In this new release, we’re in the ‘passenger seat’ for a winding journey through the battered dusty highways and byways of Iran. What really complicates this trek is what’s “packed away” with the bottled water and snacks, namely some big secrets. So, will these “hidden agendas” keep locked away when they HIT THE ROAD?

This story begins with a “rest stop’ off the shoulder of a baking trail full of sand and rocks. Papa (Hasan Majuni) is trying to nap in the back seat, while his left leg, which has been in a plaster cast for a loooong while, stretches into the front armrests. Of course, his slumber is thwarted by his “spirited” six-year-old son who’s mainly known as “little bro” (Rayan Sarlak). Meanwhile, his older “big bro” (Amin Simiar) walks around the borrowed SUV, looking for dents and leaks. In the front passenger seat, Mama (Pantea Panahiha) is jolted awake by her little boy’s hidden cell phone he had promised not to bring it along, so she grabs it and dashes away to hide it under a nearby rock, insisting that they will pick it up on the return home (odd). Soon they are back on the move, with the somber big brother at the wheel. Along the way, they encounter a cycling fan and make several “pit stops” to take the dog Jessy (who is very ill, though his frailty is hidden from the youngster) for a “walk”. After much squabbling, they get directions to their destination from a shepherd. It’s a “drop off” point for Big Bro, who has told his Little Bro that he’s off to a new job in a new city. The parents go along with the big “fib” and try to comfort their younger son while worrying about the possible dissolution of their family.


There’s a reason that the marketers have put Sarlak on the film’s poster (solo at that). He’s that rarity of child actors, one who seems completely natural on-camera. Plus he’s like so many “little men” of so many families. His character tests the patience of everyone around him, exhausting his elders to the breaking point. But it’s so hard to stay mad at him as he’s so endearing and plain adorable (watch him dance to the local pop tunes on the radio). Oh, but there’s the stubbornness, like a “dog with a bone”, never letting up on the questions as though he’s a broken record (or sound file). He’s a “formidable opponent” and makes a good sparring “scene partner” for Majuni as the gruff, always somewhat annoyed papa. He teases and taunts as he doesn’t let his inner turmoil bubble to the surface. He is quite the counterpart to Panahiha as the matriarch with her “emotions on her sleeve”, also trying to hide her fears and comforting her two “fellas” and attempting to be the glue that must repair their fractured family. The most crumbling piece is her eldest who is an enigma as played by a very stoic Simiar. He’s trying to keep focused and not get caught up on the fable concocted for his tiny sibling. There’s a spiritual sword dangling above his head but struggles to keep it out of his thoughts.


Director/writer Panah Panahi deftly balances comic exchanges and deep interpersonal conflicts while following this quartet across the desert. Sure, we know folks get quarrelsome while traveling, but there’s much going on beneath the surface. That may be the most difficult aspect of this tale. Clues and hints are dropped, but we feel almost as baffled as “lil bro”, aching to know exactly why we’re there and what’s really the problem with “big bro”. But there are great “crumbs’ along the trail. An encounter with a cyclist provides some needed humor, while a camping sequence with papa and his lil’ boy has a cosmic, mystical vibe. But then we’re kept at arm’s length, observing scenes from far, far away (this makes the subtitling even more difficult to sort out), leading to an ending full of dangling plot threads. Thanks to the teaming of Sarlak and Mujani HIT THE ROAD chugs along but over its final miles, the film just meanders and runs out of gas.


2 Out of 4


HIT THE ROAD opens in select theatres everywhere and screens exclusively in the St. Louis area at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Cinemas

THE SALESMAN – Review

Taraneh Alidoosti as Rana (left) and Shahab Hosseini as Emad (right) in THE SALESMAN, directed by Asghar Farhadi. Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios and Cohen Media Group ©
Taraneh Alidoosti as Rana (left) and Shahab Hosseini as Emad (right) in THE SALESMAN, directed by Asghar Farhadi. Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios and Cohen Media Group ©

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, who helmed the searing drama A SEPARATION, delivers another moving film that is both a gripping domestic drama and pointed exploration of the challenges of life in contemporary Iran. Iranian filmmakers have along tradition of crafting films of strong social commentary while under the constraints of a restrictive environment. Few contemporaries are as skilled at this as Farhadi, as A SEPARATION showed. That film dealt with a marriage where the future of the couple’s young daughter forced the parents into a choice. Here, another couple faced a different kind of choice, but also one driven by the realities of life in Tehran. Not surprisingly, this taut, emotional, and powerful drama is one of this year’s nominees for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

The Persian-language THE SALESMAN weaves its story a bit like a tense crime thriller but one with an undercurrent of commentary on both human nature and the difficulty of life in Iran. Emad (Shahab Hosseini) and Rana (Taraneh Alidoosti) are a young couple living in Tehran. At first, they seem much like a young couple living in any city. Emad teaches English literature at a local high school but in the evenings, both he and his wife are part of an acting troupe that is in rehearsals for a play they are soon opening, Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman.” One night shortly before the play is due to open, the couple are jolted out of their beds when heavy construction equipment, being used in work in an empty lot next door, unexpectedly damages their building and the are forced to evacuate. With their apartment building now condemned, Emad and Rana are forced to find a new home quickly. A member of the acting troupe offers a recently vacant apartment in a building he owns and they move in.

Their colleague/new landlord fails to mention that the apartment’s previous occupant has a questionable history. One evening, as Rana is home alone taking a shower, the buzzer to the building’s exterior door rings. She had taken their one door key and she is expecting her husband home any minute, so Rana unlocks the door without checking, unlocks the apartment door and returns to her shower, a moment of inattention that leads to a violent assault.

When neighbors call him, Emad rushes to the hospital, where he finds his battered wife in surgery. The doctors shoo him out but the neighbors, who found her, are sitting in the waiting room. They are strangely vague about what happened, suggesting she fell. Back at home, there are signs of home invasion and bloody footprints on the stairs. Her head bandaged, Rana is clearly traumatized but refuses to let her husband call the police to report the attack. He is frustrated and angry.

The salesman is not a reference to the home invader as one might assume but to “Death of a Salesman,” the play the acting troupe is rehearsing. Emad is playing the aging salesman Willy Loman and Rana his wife, and scenes from the play are inserted throughout the story as they rehearse, often underscoring or commenting on what is unfolding in the couple’s life.

Her refusal to bring in the police and the neighbors’ vagueness about what happened puzzles us at first. The couple seems much like modern young couples anywhere, apart from the every-present headscarves, but it gradually becomes clear that life in Tehran is quite different. There are serious reasons for the hesitance. Tensions grow between Rana and Emad over her refusal to call police, and as clues emerge about who attacked his wife, Emad’s anger threatens to explode.

The full nature of that assault and what will be done about it becomes a matter of contention between traumatized Rana and her outraged husband Emad. Their personal story is emotional gripping but the director uses it to explore and comment on life in Iran. The film explores a culture and system of laws that favors men, where victims are tainted by the assault, and public humiliation rather than justice is the likely outcome of a trial. Both Rana and Emad are caught in a net of difficult choices.

Some of the tensions between the two are what you would expect for any couple struggling to cope after an assault, but the particular restraints of Iranian society add an extra level of difficulty. Clues to the attacker’s identity which were left in the apartment and his co-worker/landlord’s lack of honesty about who lived there before complicate matters. The story unfold like a crime drama, building to a tense, electrifying climax.

As in his other films, Farhadi is a master at both building tension in the personal story and revealing unpleasant truths about life in Iran. The photography is finely done but the focus is riveted on the actors and the story’s growing tensions, which fill the air with electricity, awaiting only a spark. .

Shahab Hosseini as Emad is superb, a performance that has won him some awards, and does much in propelling the action. Much of the film focuses on Emad, wavering between being supportive of his injured wife and his thirst for revenge, but other actors shine as well. As Rana, Taraneh Alidoosti portrays a woman coping with the aftermath of an attack as any woman might but also as an Iranian woman, who must remain mindful of the severe costs should her husband’s wish to punish her assailant be unleashed in this particular society. Emad’s frustration with the landlord leads to scenes that give us additional insight on the challenges of life in Iran,while ramping up the emotional fire. What happens at the film’s end is as searing and nail-biting as the best thriller anywhere but the depth of the story and its meaning adds to the satisfying conclusion.

The couple’s struggle to cope, the unexpected parallels to the play’s story and characters, and pointed social commentary on Iran all add up to an excellent, emotionally gripping and though-provoking film, once again proving Asghar Farhadi’s brilliance as a director.

Rating: 4 1/2 out of 5 stars