It Was Just an Accident: a ‘striking’ attack on the Iranian regime

“Brave” is an overused word in film reviews, said Wendy Ide in The Observer – applied to anything from an actor’s weight gain for a role to “an unconventional editing decision”. But Iranian director Jafar Panahi really is brave. His films have been acclaimed abroad, but at home they have put him at odds with the authoritarian regime in Tehran: accused of being an anti-state “propagandist”, he has twice been jailed, and for a long time he was banned from making films.

Yet he continued to make movies in secret, and his latest – “It Was Just an Accident” – is a “direct attack on the regime”.

It tells the story of Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), a car mechanic who meets by chance a man he believes to be the sadistic guard who had previously tortured him in jail. Vahid was blindfolded during these ordeals, but he has recognised the squeaking sound made by his suspect’s prosthetic leg.

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The next day, he abducts this man on the street, and drives him into the desert. His plan is to exact retribution by burying his prisoner alive, but the man insists he is not the guard, and Vahid starts to have doubts.

From here, things get complicated and surprisingly funny, said Manohla Dargis in The New York Times. Vahid puts his detainee back into his van, and goes off to find fellow torture victims, who he hopes will confirm his suspicions. But they’re also unsure about the man’s identity. So, with echoes of “Waiting for Godot”, they take a circuitous route back to the desert, bonding and sharing stories as they go, while also fretting about what to do next.

Real events have cast a shadow over this film, said Clarisse Loughrey in The Independent: while promoting it abroad, Panahi was sentenced to jail again, in absentia. The film, however, is a triumph – “striking”, “unexpected” and darkly humorous.