Hit the Road, the tenth film of our 77th season achieved an overall appreciation score of 63%. Some positive appreciation from members but some found the film slow moving and uninteresting. Some of the comments submitted:
- Compelling, funny and sad human story. Moving interpretation of the reality of having to leave one’s homeland.
- Outstanding! Kept you guessing where they were going, with unusual ‘full frontal’ photography.
- A clever portrayal of how difficult it is for family members to communicate openly to one another on the most difficult parts of life, rather appearing to skirt round them, hiding emotions as they see fit. Parts well acted by all. Some funny cameo appearances added well to the bizareness of the situation.
- What a wonderfully quirky film and not at all what one might have expected from an Iranian film maker. Or maybe not? The dysfunctional comedic start drew me in and the drip feed of information regarding the true nature of the trip made the journey to the poignant ending a real joy. What an amazing performance from the child actor, loved the nod to 2001 Space Odyssey in the night time sequence and thought the lip synch ending about love/ loss was perfect.
- Amazing scenery. Beautiful film. A chance to feel connected with people we rarely get chance to connect with. A glimpse into a life we know little about. A gem we wouldn’t have uncovered. Thanks.
- Quite an enigmatic film that elicits a need to find out more about the circumstances that it depicts. The characters were interesting, all the actors were good.
- Beautifully filmed and not claustrophobic considering it was mainly in a car.
- Interesting, amusing and quite sad at times The characters gradually developed into personalities and gave some depth to the story. I quite liked the uncertainty around what was happening in the film. But overall not as much wow factor as I had anticipated.
- Skilfully constructed and subtle story development. An important and sad tale of migration due to life in a oppressive society.
- Although the young boy was a fantastic actor, he was so annoying. I found it hard to believe he was the older couples son as they seemed too old. I couldn’t see the subtitles as a tall man was in the way . I found the scenery very interesting.
- Very funny film to start with and a bright stunning scene to compliment. The mood of the film then changed dramatically along with the landscape. I was not quite sure what was going on at that time which left mixed and confusing feelings about the film.
- Intermittently beautiful, intermittently moving, intermittently incomprehensible, intermittently irritating.
- It didn’t seem to get going and didn’t hold my attention. I couldn’t really warm to any of the characters despite the predicament they were in.
- Wonderful cinematography of the landscape. Interesting insight into an Iranian family life. Some gentle humour. Lacked pace or structure and characters weren’t really likeable.
- Long and poor story line with little suspense about the true motive for travel. Small child was irritating and stopped being amusing very quickly. The reference to A Space Odyssey was very odd and out of context.
- Some fine central performances, visually interesting but all rather chaotic; harsh sound quality really spoiled enjoyment and the irritating kid became unbearable.
- Thankfully this film was only 90 minutes. Nothing very much happened and there was little to like about the four main characters.
- I thought the directorial approach was rather showy and lacking in credibility – e.g. the introspective gazes into the camera, the fantasy scenes, the unrealistically feral nature of the child. It all felt rather inauthentic and too keen to impress to my taste.
- Maybe just not my cup of tea, but I found this film rather tedious, the small child extremely annoying and the general nebulousness rather perplexing.
- What could have been an intense story of a family border-crossing became a tiresome one dimensional and slow plodding movie with a most irritating child as the main focus.