It Was Just an Accident [2025]

 Jafar Panahi’s blistering work It was Just an Accident was defined as much by the edgy specificity of its milieu as by the stirring universality of its appeal. Though his ban from filmmaking has finally been lifted, he must still work in the shadows due to his fierce intellect and defiance. He powerfully demonstrated that, in a voice that’s also profoundly moral, thereby making his first fully narrative feature in a long time – intimately informed by his personal experiences – essential political cinema. It began by focusing on a seemingly banal family man (Ebrahim Azizi) driving his wife and daughter home when, upon accidentally hitting a stray animal, stops at a garage to get his car inspected. Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), an auto-mechanic, recognizes him – through the squeak of his prosthetic leg – as the brutal tormentor who’d physically and psychologically tortured him during his time as a political prisoner. He decides to seek justice by kidnapping the man and burying him alive in the deserts. However, when doubts creep in about his identity, he decides to seek second opinion, and thus begins a darkly funny road trip as fellow victims each of whom carry devastating traumas – a photographer (Mariam Afshari), a would-be bride (Hadis Pakbaten) and her fiancé, a troubled man (Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr) – gather in his van, debating what ought to be the man’s punishment. Panahi complemented the guttural howls against tyranny and ethical quandaries of violent revenge with wickedly absurdist humour and subversive irony in this riveting and tightly scripted political thriller, that also comprised of virtuoso long-takes. Vahid was superb as a man broken by the state whose humanity hangs by a thread, as were his fellow actors.

Director: Jafar Panahi

Genre: Thriller/Political Thriller/Mystery

Language: Persian

Country: Iran