This was the directorial debut of Panah Panahi, the son of Jafar Panahi. Appropriately enough it’s a road trip film set largely within the confines of a car and about a family smuggling their son across the border, both elements that we’ve seen in his father’s films. It’s a rather grim scenario yet the film makes heavy use of dance and song to emphasize the humor in the situation. The use of music in particular and copious references to popular American movies ensure that Panah has difficulty establishing a style distinct from that of his father. I think the film lets the child actor steal the show too much but it is a fine film that surely presages an illustrious career to come.

A family of four accompanied by their dog Jessy are travelling across Iran in a rented SUV. The father Khosro’s leg is in a cast so he sits at the back with the younger son and the dog. The older son Farid drives but is very quiet. The mother sits in front with him and makes an effort to keep everyone in a cheerful spirit with singing and dancing. They don’t directly say where they are going but the audience gleans some clues when they insist that no mobile phones may be brought along. The younger son is hiding a phone as he is worried about missing a call from his girlfriend despite the fact that he is a little boy so the mother has to dispose of his phone by the roadside. The adults try to trick him that Farid is eloping to marry a girl. From their conversation, we gather that Farid is in some trouble with the law so his parents have decided to smuggle him out of the country where hopefully he can find work. To afford this, they had to mortgage their house so the parents are worried both about Farid surviving on his own and about their own future. Meanwhile Jessy is sick and dying while the adults need to constantly find ways to distract the younger son to catch their breath and get things done.

Just as his father once did, Panah seems to be trying to take on tough subjects and then deflecting them with humor. There’s a lot more emphasis on musical cues and the sheer joy of singing and lip syncing here however so at times this feels like an in-car karaoke session.It’s undeniably funny and entertaining with all of the antics that the younger son gets up to and it’s a wonder that he found a child actor, Rayan Sarlak, charismatic enough to pull it off and follow directions. Along with a remarkably docile and obedient dog, who could say no to this film? I feel that the balance is off however, leaving not enough space for the other characters. Farid is too quiet for most of the film and when he does have a conversation with his father, it’s stilted and incomplete. The script is rich enough to encompass the subtleties in their relationships, such as how the mother feels that her husband is exaggerating his disability and how the father feels that everyone isn’t listening to him and taking him seriously. But it’s tough for the film to work through these issues with the little boy grabbing all the screen time.

As we’ve just seen in No Bears, what underlies this film is the sense there is no hope left for Iranians in Iran itself. Instead they look for freedom and prosperity in other countries. There are many references to popular Hollywood movies which show that the family is just like anyone else people in the West might know, down to even having a dog in their car, while still being Iranian. It’s hilarious how the younger son keeps trying to kiss the ground and of course their taste in music, their language and their expressions are all Iranian. What I dislike is that the film is deliberately vague about the background of the members of this family, as is what they do, what Farid did that got him in trouble and so on. It seems obvious that this isn’t just some random Iranian family but an usually artistic and well educated one, perhaps modelled on Panahi’s own. I suspect that the intent to not definitively pin down their background is to imply that they could be anyone in Iran but that doesn’t feel plausible to me.

All in all, I’d that this rates as an excellent directorial debut. It’s fun to watch, it’s emotive and it’s meaningful in the context of the plight of Iranians. Reading up more on it, I also learned both father and son like to film scenes in cars so much. Apparently there’s some ambiguity in Iranian law whether the interior of a car counts as a public or a private space, so this lets them get away with more, such as showing the mother’s hair partially uncovered. It seems that this is also why the car is seen as a kind of symbol of the freedom of expression.