Review: It Was Just An Accident

Official synopsis: An unassuming mechanic, Vahid ( Vahid Mobasseri) is reminded of his time in an Iranian prison when he encounters a man he suspects to be his sadistic jailhouse captor. (Ebrahim Azizi) Panicked, he rounds up a few of his fellow ex-prisoners to confirm the man's identity.

Looking at the poster for It Was Just An Accident, it would be understandable if you mistook this for some type of buddy comedy. A bride and groom in full wedding attire pile into a van and drive from place to place. Jafar Panahi's film has those moments of levity, but make no mistake that this has some serious subject matter. Panahi wrote it after serving a prison sentence himself.

He also shot this film entirely in secret in Iran and used a blend of professional  and amateur actors. Mariam Afshari, who plays Shiva, one of Vahid's fellow prisoners is a karate instructor in real life. Not a professional actress, and you would never tell. The casting is impeccable. 

Recently one of my Iranian co-workers spoke about their time in prison in Iran at a student and I couldn't help but think of them while watching this. Especially during a scene where the Bride (Hadis Pakbaten) recounts her torture. It's horrifying enough to hear without the personal connection to it, but it also helps you understand why Panahi would want to write a film like this. What do you do after living through that? What happens if you encounter one of your captors later in life? The entire film is a morality question and is constantly asking its audience where they would lie.

The last 15 minute of this film are intense, and Panahi doesn't do anything fancy with his camera. He just plants it on a tripod and lets his actors do their thing, and that makes it even more powerful. I'm still thinking about the ending a week after seeing this. I'm still not sure how I feel about it personally. It's in no way a bad ending, I think it works very well for the film, but again, it's a morality play. What choice would you make?

Grade: A