It Was Just an Accident

Released 2025. Director: Jafar Panahi

IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT IS ABOUT ANGER, trauma and the urge to inflict pain. It is also about the need for justice, the hesitation at the point of no return and going against your survival instincts.

The beauty of this movie is how all these ideas seem to simply surface without apparent staging or grandstanding. The plot unfolds in a straight line, the story proceeds linearly, no flashbacks or fancy edits, as we learn about who the characters are and the reason for what they're doing.

Vahid suspects that the man who has walked into his mechanic workshop is Eghbal, the interrogator who tortured him in prison. Although Vahid was blindfolded, he can still remember the sound made by Eghbal's peg leg. And it's this same tapping, squeaking noise on the hard floor of his workshop that sends chills down Vahid's spine. He finds out where Eghbal lives and knocks him cold, kidnaps the man and digs a hole to bury him alive. Such is the rage in Vahid for the physical and mental torment he suffered.

And yet Vahid is not a monster. He has the slightest doubt, so he finds a fellow inmate from his past to confirm the man in his van is indeed who he thinks he is. Through the day, he would round up a few former political prisoners who also suffered terribly under the same tormentor with a gimpy leg, to affirm his identity and take their vengeance together.

Shiva, a wedding photographer, has put the past behind her and wants nothing to do with Vahid's plan after confirming that the man is indeed their tormenter. She thinks what Vahid wants to do is dangerous and illegal, but she is swept along when the bride and groom being photographed find out about the captive in the van and their emotions boil over. They too, had once been on the receiving end of Eghbal's cruelty. Hamid, the last the join the group, is incensed at the sight of Eghbal and is most vehement to pay back an eye for an eye. This ragtag band argue and feud bitterly, unable to reach a consensus while the captive remains blindfolded and semi-conscious, awaiting his unknown fate.

Jafar Panahi has long been critical of Iran's authoritarian regime. The filmmaker has been arrested, sentenced, imprisoned, released, banned, but continues to make his voice heard. To evade the authority, It Was Just an Accident was shot in secrecy but you'd never pick it, even when the scenes take place in busy streets in Tehran. Panahi's directorial confidence is in full display here. Many of the scenes are long takes allowing his characters to state their case without the shots being cut or the perspective shifted. More than expository, these scenes also underline the strength of the writing and the acting. They keep the movie on a high temperature while engaging the audience to consider what is right versus what feels right.

It's not a spoiler for me to reveal here that despite the intense desire for vengeance, the group of agitated victims do not kill their tormenter. To do so would reduce them to the level of their enemy, and you can sense that they are better than the foot soldier who carry out the dirty work of the ruthless regime. The fact that they're debating heatedly about their action shows their conscience and rationality has not been hijacked by strong feelings.

We know just enough about each of these characters – who they are and what they went through, some in more graphic detail than others – to be sympathetic to their appetite for payback. An early incident involving a stray dog gives the movie its title, alluding to the notion that “accidents” happen sometimes, dog or human, calculated or fate.

Along the way Panahi also artfully inserts comments on the widespread corruption that squeezes the ordinary citizens, so much so that they've come to expect it at every turn as if it's the most normal thing.

As Eghbal edges closer to his retribution, his phone rings. His five-year-old daughter needs to speak with her dad urgently. An unexpected turn has now complicated the situation for the group but I shouldn't tell you what happens next. It might have been an accident for Vahid to bump into Eghbal initially, but it's no accident when someone hellbent on putting a man in the ground decides to save, instead of kill. In the process, Eghbal the sadistic jailer is humanised, first by circumstances involving his family, then by his own testament.

The character development is another aspect I admire about the storytelling. How the experience of kidnap, near-murder and a medical emergency can lead to a change of heart shows that this movie, though driven by a thirst for justice and revenge, is not about bloodlust but compassion for the person you wish would die a horrble death.

Panahi's masterstroke is the final shot, held just long enough to make you hold your breath, a cliffhanger that could land where you feel it should. Is Vahid's life in peril, a future spent glancing over his shoulder; or has the same haunting sound of a prosthetic leg become notes of unspoken gratitude; or something else entirely? As endings go, this one is striking in its simplicity but sure to stick in your mind.

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