Panah Panahi's Hit The Road and other Awards Season upsets — Cultural Digest #1
Panah Panahi's Hit The Road and other Awards Season upsets — Cultural Digest #1
For Your Consideration
Within the first thirty seconds of Panah Panahi’s debut Hit The Road, I knew I was in the hands of a filmmaking master. I felt myself bed down into the hug of my sofa and completely relax. I literally started laughing out loud about two minutes in because I couldn’t believe how good it was. I patted my hand around next to me, eyes nailed to the screen, searching in vain for my phone. I wanted to text a friend to tell them to watch it with me in convoy immediately. There was a familiar buzzing sound. Maybe my friend was texting me! But then the buzzing woke the woman on the screen so I figured this nagging problem was hers and not mine. Still in a half fog of sleep she turns to her 6 year old son to deliver the film’s first line of dialogue: “Where are we?” she says. “We’re dead.” he responds. So was I. Cooked. Baked. Brown Bread. Dead.
As a member of BAFTA I vote on the film submissions for the year. Before online streaming was a thing, the film distributors would send out individual DVD screeners to voters, like perfect little cellophane-wrapped early Christmas presents - and I guess they were in a way because you would own those DVDs for life. But now they can all be accessed online - like a streaming service, but for the entire year’s movies. Needless to say but access to this library is the reason I joined BAFTA.
Filmmakers can upload their movies as early as they like onto the platform although most of the big hitters strategically wait until December-time when Oscar buzz is roaring towards its brawling peak. I always try to watch as many films as humanly possible (work schedule permitting) and have landed anywhere between 30-70 films each year since I’ve had access to them. This year I set out to watch them all. I know. But I was determined - I had some time off and I was feeling optimistic. There were 220 entries at the final count. I watched… 102 of them. Not bad, but as it turns out my ambitious goal was wildly unrealistic.
Each member of BAFTA is assigned a group of at least 15 diversely selected films to watch as a sort of bare minimum, in theory to encourage fairer voting and give smaller films just like Hit The Road a fighting chance of being recognised. But far from being off people’s radar Hit The Road appears on nearly every end of year Top 10 List, it was a film festival breakout and received excellent reviews. The director, Panah Panahi, is the son of Jafar Panahi, a hugely well-known and celebrated Iranian filmmaker. Jafar is currently imprisoned in one of the most notorious high-security prisons in Tehran for his work, alongside hundreds of other artists, scientists and brilliant minds who have dared to speak out against the regime. Last Tuesday he went on a hunger strike. Given the increased focus on Iran, and the potential life-threatening consequences of independent Iranian filmmakers even attempting to get their films made, I rather carelessly assumed that this film would be much higher up on people’s must-watch lists. I thought it was an awards slam dunk. To give this some context, it is the only film I voted for this year that did not end up with a nomination at either the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs, or the Oscars. It is a total anomaly. Or is it?
“We all have a block when it comes to our transgressions. Our mind just stops. It’s all just reflection. Why? Because we’re sure we’re good people. And it’s true, we are good people but we will always protect ourselves.”
Hit The Road
I advocated for this film. I posted fervently about it on my Instagram. I think I sort of knew it would get lost in the discourse somewhere between Tár and Top Gun: Maverick’s nods - both of which I LOVED by the way — the former for its suspenseful almost operatic sense of scale, as well as Cate Blanchett’s performance; and the latter for daring to scale the heights of a proper old-school action-movie, with Tom Cruise doing the thing that only Tom Cruise can do.
But was my advocating for this tiny film on social media an aberration not unlike the displays of Edward Norton and other friends of Michael Morris in favour of To Leslie? A film that made a trifling $27K at the box office but is now at the top of everyone’s watchlists because Andrea Riseborough received a surprise Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance, and left a trail of bizarre controversy in its wake.
Andrea Riseborough in To Leslie, image courtesy of Momentum Pictures
To Leslie was so small and had so little money that the filmmakers didn’t even have enough left to pay the fees required to enter it in to all the relevant awards competitions. It wasn’t one of the 102 films that I watched because it wasn’t one of the 220 on offer. It wasn’t submitted to BAFTA it was only submitted to the Oscars.
So the story goes, the director asked some of his (famous) friends to help raise the profile of the film and they did. They hosted screenings and posted about the movie online. If this sounds gross to you. It kind of is. But truthfully, no more gross than the existing system of awards campaigns in America which are taken as seriously and expensively as their political sister, the election campaign. The whole thing is structured around screenings, Q&As, drinks parties and occasionally much sketchier things besides (for which the Golden Globes were recently investigated), where you effectively schmooze your potential voters. Call it lobbying but it’s really an-all out scrap, dressed up in Givenchy and dripping with diamonds but a total bar fight nonetheless - aptly one straight out of To Leslie. And thus the more money your project has, inevitably the bigger the For Your Consideration billboards in the right neighbourhoods. The more screenings. The more Q&As. The more parties. You get the idea. Rightly or wrongly, there is an awful lot at stake.
So for a film as tiny as To Leslie, that had no money to lean on, only friendship, to get recognised at the Oscars should be being celebrated as an underdog triumph, no? If we were talking about a Hollywood juggernaut or even a much more well-known actress, I don’t know that there would be this same level of scrutiny. Blonde for example was universally dismissed by critics but Ana de Armas’ nomination is not in question. For the people who endorsed To Leslie and to get behind Andrea Riseborough’s performance in the way that they did, they would have had to believe in the film they were advocating for. At least that’s what I believe. They certainly didn’t stand to gain anything from it being recognised. And this wasn’t about humouring an amateur who was trying out a new hobby. This is a tenderly made, heartbreaking, classic Indie movie by an experienced director that could have been lost to the annals of time but thankfully hasn’t been - dare I mention the 118 films that I didn’t get to watch and likely never will? (Since the nominees have been announced all other films have been removed from the BAFTA viewing platform.) Isn’t it what filmmaking and awards have always been about, a breakout Indie movie? Remember CODA? Moonlight? I honestly cannot think of anything more romantic than your peers advocating for you on your behalf in this way. And genuine question, what’s the difference? Screenings were hosted by friends of the filmmaker rather than a production company. It was still always about lobbying voters and raising awareness of a film that otherwise didn’t have a hope of being recognised. If those friends had donated funds to the production company so that they could have hosted those events themselves, would that have been ok? Perhaps it was the flashiness of the friends and therefore their influence that was the problem. Perhaps it’s the privilege of having access to those flashy friends in the first place. Ah, there’s a rub. But to my mind what should really be called into question are the flaws within the very infrastructure of the awards system itself and the inordinate wealth of funds required to carry out a successful awards campaign, that prevent scrappy little movies without a penny to their name getting a look in. If anything the To Leslie team thought outside the box, grabbed a bowl of peanuts and snuck out the backdoor before anyone started smashing bottles.
Do you need to win awards though, to be validated? No of course not. Or rather, one would hope not but let’s face it, culturally we’ve been conditioned to think that we do. They are very lovely to have. They might guarantee a capitalist advantage of the product/ person who holds them, but they do not determine true value. Try saying that to someone in Hollywood during awards season though and you will be shut down but that old (eternal) optimist in me believes that if something is good enough then it will always find its audience. Eventually. Even if it’s a few years down the line. Even if it’s just a small cult following.
The happiest three months of my life as an actor were spent making the BBC adaptation of Kate Atkinson’s bestselling novel Life After Life - released Spring 2022, starring a literal movie star Thomasin McKenzie of Jojo Rabbit and Last Night In Soho, and directed by a past Oscar nominee himself, John Crowley who made Brooklyn. Fantastically reviewed, loved even by the book’s most hardcore of fans - according to the Twitter searches I wincingly conducted through my fingers anyway - but hardly anyone watched it. Maybe it was timing. Maybe it was too challenging - some of it is pretty harrowing. I know I would love for more people to see it - for those who are interested and in the UK, it can be found on BBC iPlayer. I am exceptionally proud of it all the same. It will be up for consideration at this year’s TV BAFTAs but I don’t want to get caught up in all that and lose sight of the fact that we made great work and much more importantly I would argue, had the time of our lives doing it. It’s all about the journey right, not the destination?
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Hit The Road is about a journey. Of the 102 films I saw, it was the second film I watched. I struck gold, oil and lightning on only my second try. I found the best one. I cannot overstate this enough: it is the best one. Of all time? One of my all times for sure. I rewatched it last night and experienced just as much joy and awe and fulfilment as I did the first time. If not more because for a good portion of the film you are on a road trip with this family but where you are going or why, is shrouded in mystery. The rewatch gifts you with all the satisfying subliminal tells, delicately sown from the beginning of the movie to its glorious, edifying end, should you know where the story is heading.
The whole point of movies is the art of visual storytelling - whether that’s captured by the frame, by performance, or by spectacle - or in some cases, all three. Enter, Top Gun: Maverick. But the visual storytelling in Hit The Road is truly remarkable. The screenplay is flawless but most of my favourite moments are the punchlines that land purely visually. It is the most naturalistic and outrageously human film I have ever seen. It contains a performance from a child that will leave you gasping and the most believable family of all time. It even has a dog, Jessy, who’s poorly. I shan’t say anymore about Jessy… It is hilarious, dark, romantic, suspenseful, esoteric and heart expanding. Its subject matter, when it is eventually revealed, is an incredibly serious one but handled with the deftness and care of someone with an extraordinarily light touch and sense of humour. I beg you to seek this film out — but for god’s sake do not go near the trailer because I’ve never known a trailer to do a worse service to its mothership than this movie. (Ok if you must watch the trailer then ONLY watch it after you’ve watched the film to see what I’m talking about. If you watch it before I’m pretty sure you won’t ever want to watch the film and I really want you to watch the film.)
When I saw that Hit The Road hadn’t even been long-listed for the BAFTAs, the ones I had voted for, I had a physical reaction. I felt genuine outrage. And guilt. I felt emotional for the people that had poured themselves into this tiny movie at great risk, casually made a masterpiece and no would ever know about it. I should’ve shouted louder from the rooftops about how much I loved it, or spoken to more of my fellow BAFTA members about how they had to prioritise it - not to tell them to vote for it, just to tell them to watch it, to give it a fighting chance. Just like a bunch of famous people inviting friends over to watch a film that they think deserves to at least be seen, I guess. To be considered.
Andrea Riseborough was the year above me at RADA. She was my favourite actor, not just in her year but in the entire school. Ask anyone who was at school with us at the time if they remember Andrea’s hyena from the ‘Animal Projects’ - the closest you’d get at drama school to embodying a tree - or her Little Red Riding Hood in Into The Woods. I can guarantee you that they will. She was and always has been a stand out. Unlike me, since graduating not once has she shied away from making the bold choices I always knew and loved her for. The industry thus far has failed to stifle her daring, though I fear that this incident might.
Like a great deal of people I imagine, I watched To Leslie this weekend. Andrea’s performance is haunting, raw, ferocious and aching with vulnerability. Her deserving of a nomination is irrefutable. Are there others who are also deserving? Of course there are. There are hundreds of them, languishing in unopened dusty DVD sleeves on people’s shelves, or worse, some dank back corner of the internet. One of them is Pantea Panhiha by they way. The dozing mother woken by a buzzing on the radio at the beginning of Hit The Road. And so I guess the other end of the argument goes - maybe she would be nominated too, if the director of Hit The Road had had more influential friends than just me and my ailing Instagram, maybe she would be too.
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