After the success of this film in Cannes, where it won the Palme d’Or, French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot described it as ”a gesture of resistance against the Iranian regime’s oppression”. Correct, for sure, but I guess the mullahs in Tehran felt that they needed to react somehow, claiming among other things that France had no moral authority to comment on Iran. That’s rich coming from a regime that has consistently done everything to make director Jafar Panahi’s life difficult; shortly after I saw this film, the director was sentenced to one year in prison and handed a travel ban, for creating propaganda against the political system.
A very brave man, Panahi has refused to go into exile, most likely infuriating Tehran. It Was Just an Accident is one of the director’s most openly political films, and one of his most arresting.
A clicking sound
After an accident involving a dog, a man (Ebrahim Azizi) with a prosthetic leg, riding in his car together with his wife and daughter, stops by a garage. While waiting for a mechanic to take a look at his car, the man walks into the garage, the clicking sound of his leg heard throughout. One person who hears it is Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), who is suddenly terrified. The next day, Vahid follows the man, kidnaps him and drives into the desert, fully intending to dig a hole and bury him there. After all, why shouldn’t he? Vahid recognizes the man as his former tormentor, nicknamed ”peg leg”, who tortured him in prison. But Vahid isn’t completely certain that he has the right man. He needs other victims to identify him as well…
Secretly filmed in Iran
Since it is not possible for Panahi to obtain a filming permit from the Iranian regime, each film he makes is a secret project. This one was done with financing from France and Luxembourg, it was secretly filmed in Iran and then post-production was done in France. The story is a straight-forward depiction of what it’s like to live in a dictatorship like Iran. These regimes are not all the same, obviously, and in this case we see how the former victims of Tehran’s oppression have been able to move on in many ways and build new lives after getting out of prison.
But the psychological wounds are still there and when a ghost from the past reemerges, like Eghbal, the man who’s called ”peg leg”, it upends everybody’s life. Especially since Vahid made such a drastic decision to kidnap him, forcing everybody to judge for themselves if this is something they want to, or feel compelled, to be part of. Two of them are Goli and Ali (Hadis Pakbaten, Majid Panahi) who are literally just getting married, and Shiva (Mariam Afshari) who’s taking their wedding photos. Suddenly, they all find themselves, one of them wearing a wedding dress, in Vahid’s van together with a man who might once have tortured them. There’s also Hamid (Mohammed Ali Elyasmehr), Shiva’s former partner, who becomes convinced that the man in the van is indeed Eghbal.
A great cast is icing on the cake.
Over the course of the film, the characters ponder how to deal with Eghbal; there are moral quandaries, all leading up to a final confrontation that really could go either way, illustrating how everybody, tormentors and victims, ends up suffering in a dictatorship. But Panahi also makes sure we see everyday life in Iran, with lighthearted moments, making us care for the characters. A great cast is icing on the cake.
The final scene is brilliantly staged, eerie and clever in how it bookends the story. There was hope for Vahid and Shiva, but there can be no escape in Iran, no relief from the mullahs’ brain-washed thugs.
It Was Just an Accident 2025-Iran-France-Luxembourg. 104 min. Color. Written and directed by Jafar Panahi. Cast: Vahid Mobasseri (Vahid), Mariam Afshari (Shiva), Ebrahim Azizi (Eghbal), Hadis Pakbaten, Majid Panahi, Mohammed Ali Elyasmehr.
Trivia: Iranian title: Yek tasadof-e sadeh. French title: Un simple accident. Co-produced by Panahi.
Cannes: Palme d’Or.
Last word: “I try to be as neutral as possible and show the film in all its perspectives. It was important even letting the interrogator express what was important for that character, for him to be human as well. If I tried to take sides, the film wouldn’t be as effective or as truthful. I could have been more in line with the character in the bookstore, who already knew that the point of this whole excursion was pointless, and could have just left it at that. But that’s not my role in making this film.” (Panahi, Little White Lies)