Panah Panahi's deceptively breezy road movie opens with the mournful strains of a Schubert sonata. A young boy mimes along with each note, bent over piano keys drawn onto an amply decorated leg cast, revealed by the gently drifting camera to belong to his dozing father.
The initial image – slightly disorienting, with the cast a strange, log-like shape dominating the frame – hints at the playful nature of the would-be pianist (Rayan Sarlak, a real livewire), but also at the deception that underpins this family road trip. (Why are no mobile phones allowed? Why are they in a borrowed car? And why is Farid, the elder son played by Amin Simiar, so tight-lipped?)
A deceptive bent also characterises the cinema of the Iranian New Wave, which Panahi's feature debut extends. The films of the 'new wave' that emerged in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution offered neo-realism warped by slippery, self-reflexive elements that made it hard to distinguish between documentary and fiction: filmmakers like the late Abbas Kiarostami and his protégé Jafar Panahi — father of Hit the Road's writer-director — sometimes play versions of themselves on screen, visibly nudging the action along.
