One night, a man driving on a family outing hits something in the dark. He discovers he’s run over a dog. He drags it to the side of the road while it is still alive and whimpering in pain. A dismissive shrug to his wife, as though to say: it was just an accident. His pregnant wife comforts their small daughter who is in tears: what will be, will be.
A few miles down the road, their car breaks down, setting off a shattering chain reaction of events that will change their lives forever.
This ugly accident opens the latest tale out of today’s Iran by Jafar Panahi, the Iranian filmmaker who has done several stints in jail as a political prisoner as well as being banned from filmmaking and forbidden to leave the country (the latter possibility was explored and rejected in his 2022 No Bears, which won the Special Jury Prize at Venice.)
Like the director’s previous work, It Was Just an Accident masterfully mixes humor and tenderness with anger and drama, while it raises the stakes in openly attacking the Iranian regime and the violence it perpetrates on its citizens. But in this case the characters’ suffering is largely kept on screen, distant from the audiences. The relatively simplistic storytelling (for a filmmaker known for highly layered work) can also feel like it’s underperforming cinematically and emotionally.
In the end, it is Panahi’s outspoken political commentary on the Iranian regime that will win this fable-like tale prizes at festivals and access to theatrical audiences. The film’s unique value lies in its choice to focus on the lasting psychological damage done to the victims of torture and their fantasies of revenge on their captors. If only they could find them.
Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) is working late in a car rental garage when he hears a sound that chills him to the bone. It is the sound of a man with a prosthetic leg that squeaks as he walks. Though Vahid was always blindfolded in prison, he recognizes the torturer who broke his back by the nightmarish sound of “Peg-Leg” coming to interrogate and beat him. The next day, in town, in broad daylight, he finds Peg-Leg’s car and somehow manages to knock him out and tie him up. He acts instinctively, driven by hatred and anger. He has no plan, except to drive his van and its unconscious passenger to the desert.
Of course, we recognize Peg-Leg as the man (Ebrahim Azizi) who hit the dog, and whose car broke down shortly afterwards. His terrified protests of innocence to Vahid ring true. He has a pregnant wife, a young daughter. He lost his leg, he claims, a year ago in an accident. Even Vahid has his doubts, and just as he starts to bury his torturer alive in a deep hole he has dug in the sand, he hesitates. Maybe he should get a second opinion?
From this point the story turns into a classic fable. First Vahid tries to persuade a book seller who was in prison with him to identify the man, but he refuses point blank and tells him to ask Shiva (Mariam Afshari), who is another ex-prisoner. Vahid finds her working as a wedding photographer and she passes the buck to wild man Hamid (Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr). In a farcical turn, the whole crew including a bride Goli (Hadis Pakbaten) and groom (Majid Panahi) dressed in their finery pile into the back of the van with Peg-Leg lying tied up in a coffin-like case, while they furiously debate what to do with the body, The Trouble with Harry-style.
The one thing sure is that no one reacts logically, and when their captive gets a call that his wife has fainted on the kitchen floor, the crew of avengers shows their moral superiority by getting involved, whatever the consequences. There are some impassioned moments in the last scene, where the lasting price of torture is bitterly recounted, and a final twist that offers some clarity but no closure. It seems the chilling sound of a squeaking artificial leg is doomed to haunt Vahid forever.
Director, screenplay: Jafar Panahi
Producers: Jafar Panahi, Philippe Martin
Cast: Vahid Mobasseri, Ebrahim Azizi, Mariam Afshari, Hadis Pakbaten, Majid Panahi, Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr
Cinematography: Amin Jafari
Editing: Amir Etminan
Production design: Leila Naghdi
Production companies: Jafar Panahi Prods.,Les Films Pelléas in association with Bidibul Prods., Pio & Co., Arte France Cinéma
World Sales: MK2 Films
Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Competition)
In Farsi
105 minutes
