‘It Was Just An Accident’ review: Jafar Panahi confronts the Iranian injustice system head-on

Dir/scr: Jafar Panahi. Iran/France/Luxembourg. 2025. 103mins

A person (Ebrahim Azizi), his closely pregnant spouse (Afssaneh Najmabadi) and their younger daughter (Delmaz Najafi) are driving late at night time on the outskirts of Tehran after they collide with and kill a stray canine. The automobile engine falters they usually search assist from an area enterprise proprietor. There, they encounter Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), who recognises the husband as the person who ruined his life – or, no less than, he thinks he does – and a spiralling chain of occasions is ready in movement. For his newest movie, Jafar Panahi drew inspiration from the tales of the man inmates he met throughout his seven-month-long second stint in jail. There’s a seam of pitch black gallows humour operating by means of the image, and moments of absurdist hilarity. However principally, it’s an impassioned and forthright condemnation of the regime and of the lads who do its bidding.

An impassioned and forthright condemnation of the regime and of the lads who do its bidding.

The sentence, handed out after Panahi’s first arrest in 2010, banning him from making movies, giving interviews and travelling, resulted within the extra introspective and experimental method of images akin to No Bears and This Is Not A Movie. Now that the sentence has been formally annulled, Panahi seems to be outwards as soon as once more and discovers an Iran that has modified markedly from that of his earlier photos. This Cannes Competitors title remains to be, nonetheless, clearly a piece that was created outdoors of the official system, with out approval from the authorities.

It’s a courageous image that confronts injustice head-on and which supplies voices to a bunch of characters (fictional, however drawn from the experiences of actual individuals) who discovered themselves victims of the regime. Panahi has picked up a formidable haul of prizes over time, together with Berlin Golden Bears for The Circle and Taxi Tehran; Cannes Finest Screenplay for 3 Faces and a Particular Jury Prize at Venice for No Bears. It Was Simply An Accident could properly observe an analogous path.

It’s not the person’s face that prompts a sickening lurch of recognition in Vahid. Reasonably, it’s a sound: the tortured creak of a prosthetic limb –  additionally used to sensible impact in a paralysingly tense sequence in the direction of the tip of the image. With out a clear plan, Vahid abducts the person from a busy metropolis road. He believes that the person is a former regime enforcer and jail interrogator nicknamed Pegleg however, to make sure of his id, he calls upon others who bear the scars of Pegleg’s brutal remedy. 

They’re a disparate group. Panahi stresses that folks from all walks of life have discovered themselves imprisoned and punished by the regime. And whereas they’re united by the traumas that they endured, they could agree on little else – definitely not about what to do with the person who could or will not be their torturer. Whereas Vahid discovered himself behind bars for asking for his excellent pay, marriage ceremony photographer Shiva (Mariam Afshari) was imprisoned for criticising the regime. Goli (Hadis Pakbaten), a bride-to-be in a full meringue gown, is deeply traumatised by her experiences by the hands of Pegleg; her groom (Majid Panahi) is simply starting to grasp the extent of her struggling. Hamid (Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr) is a person pushed by an ungovernable anger that causes him to lash out indiscriminately. In the meantime Salar, an older man whom Vahid tracks down in a bookshop and who refuses to get entangled, cautions motive and restraint. 

Panahi squeezes these warring parts with their conflicting opinions into the again of a white van. Just like the body itself, the van is a claustrophobic area that appears too constrained to accommodate the accrued ache of Pegleg’s victims. In the meantime, simply present comes at a value, with each safety guard, nurse or petrol station attendant demanding a ‘donation’. As a movie that’s all about giving voice to the oppressed and permitting the individuals to talk fact to energy, it may be slightly declamatory. However the image’s most emphatic message – a requirement for regret reasonably than revenge – is one which bears repeating.