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by anna jane begley
There hasn’t been a more important filmmaker this side of the 21st century as Jafar Panahi. The Iranian auteur and democracy campaigner continues relentlessly to produce films as an act of freedom and defiance against Iran’s oppressive regime, and his latest film – the first since he was imprisoned in Tehran in 2022 for inquiring about other detained filmmakers – is his most emotive yet.
An unconventional revenge thriller that won this year’s Palme d’Or, it’s saturated with anger, absurdity and moral ambiguity, based on his encounters with fellow inmates and political campaigners during his six months at Teheran’s Evin Prison. This wasn’t his first brush with Iranian authorities: Panahi was first imprisoned in 2010 and subject to a filmmaking and travel ban for “propaganda against the state”, though he continued to produce movies, notably This is Not a Film. As I write, it’s been reported that Panahi has yet again been arrested for “propaganda” against the Tehran regime.
And so it couldn’t be a more crucial time to watch It Was Just An Accident, a tragicomic tale that centres on a car mechanic Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), a lonesome man with a bushy moustache and sadness behind his eyes, also called Jughead from the way he grasps his back in pain. One night at his garage, he hears the steady squeaking of a gentleman’s prosthetic leg, and panic sets in as tries to work out if he knows this man from his dark past.
Overnight, the seemingly timid Vahid transforms into a brash and punitive criminal, kidnapping the gentleman in broad daylight on the streets of Tehran, determined to enact revenge on who he assumes is Peg Leg, a brutal guard who tortured Vahid while he was a political prisoner. There is only one problem: Vahid has no idea what Peg Leg looks like, knowing only the distinct cadence of his prosthetic leg. And the gentleman, lying blindfolded and bloodied in a grave Vahid had dug for him, insists he is innocent.
And so begins a zany series of events that involves wedding photographer Shiva (Mariam Afshari), bride Goli (Hadis Pakbaten), groom Ali (Majid Panahi), and Shiva’s ex-with-anger-issues Hamid (Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr), all crammed in a van, attempting to decipher this man’s identity – as well as deciding what punishment could possibly match the eternal emotional and physical pain that had been unjustly inflicted upon them.
Therein lies the question of what can drive normal people to violence – indeed can normal people ever be truly violent? Despite the obvious absurdist comedy to Panahi’s work (in one scene there is a direct reference to Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot), there is also a sharp acidity that cuts through the laughter; you can almost taste Panahi’s cynicism in the air.
That cynicism couldn’t be more potent than in the film’s denouement which marks a determined shift away from the established tone of Chaucerian satire. It’s angry, it’s fierce – and like the ghosts that haunt the film’s unfortunate characters, it lingers on your mind for far longer than you necessarily want it to.
It Was Just an Accident is in cinemas from 5 December
