It Was Just an Accident 4 stars
It Was Just an Accident, by the noted Iranian filmmaker, Jafar Panahi is a revenge movie but is deeper than that as it questions the cost of revenge. I have never seen any of Panahi’s other films, but I understand that he has many productions to his name and is well regarded. A minor accident at the beginning of the film sets in motion a series of events that will have a lasting effect on the lives of several persons that were held captive in a notorious prison run by the oppressive Iranian government. Vahid is a mechanic who one day hears the sounds of a customer in his shop who is being served by his partner. He thinks he recognizes the customer’s limp as the prison guard who tormented him using “enhanced interrogations” while he was being held in prison years earlier. The man is Rashid, a man with a family, who walks with a limp because he has an artificial limb. Vahid schemes to find Rashid’s home, follow him and kidnap him, then sets about trying to bury him alive in the desert. But Vahid’s problem is he can’t be absolutely sure he has the right man since he was always kept blindfolded while in prison. So, he sets out to find other people who were also held prisoner and tortured by the same guard, bringing them all together to identify Rachid and confront their own past nightmares. They have heated arguments about the situation discussing whether to let him go or execute him. Things get even more complicated for them when they find out that Rachid has a wife who is in desperate need of medical aid and they must help her and the couple’s daughter. They find that given the chance for revenge, the cost to their being and sanity may not be worth any satisfaction they may receive. The ending is very powerful and not what I expected. Jafar Panahi was himself held prisoner by the authoritarian regime and was prohibited from making more films, but he hasn’t let that stop him. You can understand why the Iranian government doesn’t want him to express his views. He made this movie without the knowledge of the government using amateur actors and what could be termed as low production techniques, filming it all in Iran. Nevertheless, he has produced a powerful film, one that achieved critical success and won awards at the Cannes Film Festival last year. I was lucky enough to find it in the theater where I saw the full effect of the drama. Don’t be surprised to see it mentioned in the Academy Award nominations in a few weeks. It happens to be the official Academy Award foreign film submission from France.