A key player within the new wave of Iranian cinema, writer and director Jafar Panahi has pushed boundaries for decades through his metacinematic tales of contemporary state surveillance. His latest piece is It Was Just an Accident, a darkly comic thriller that centres around a bizarre mystery. When mechanic Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) recognises the distinctive squeak of a prosthetic leg from a customer (Ebrahim Azizi), he suspects him to be his former tormentor from a stint in prison. Impulsively, he kidnaps the man, bundling him into the back of his van. However, as doubts set in over his true identity, he rallies together a line-up of fellow victims to help uncover the truth.
From the synopsis the set-up plays like a farcical comedy, and in a way it is. A suspenseful first act paves the way for a road movie of sorts as we’re introduced to a handful of characters that also happen to be victims of extreme torture. It’s a very intelligent storytelling strategy in Panahi’s script as it places this inhumane maltreatment within the everyday, crafting a thought-provoking juxtaposition. This in turn makes for situations of jet-black satire as Vahid and his motley crew encounter figures of authority along the way that are blatantly open to bribery: a particularly staggering but wickedly funny scene sees officers of the law produce a contactless machine to accept payment for their co-operation.
Leading actor Vahid Mobasseri is no stranger to the intrepid endeavors of Panahi, having made his big screen debut a few years ago in his previous effort No Bears. His portrayal brings with it a potent mix of fear, courage, and uncertainty. He desperately wants his suspicions to be confirmed, but there’s no backup plan – his antihero attitude snaps the viewer into the savage reality of modern-day life in Iran as he figures out his next move.
Azizi is also excellent in the part that may or may not be the sadistic villain known to his prisoners as ‘Peg Leg’ Eghbal. We initially witness him in family man mode in the opening sequence as he drives his car through the night with his pregnant wife and young child in tow, another smart decision from the director in engineering our pre-conceptions of the puzzling character. As the plot thickens, our opinion of him is led to twist and turn as much as it might for the protagonist as we, as an audience, are left in the dark.
With his powerful lens, Jafar Panahi brings the far-fetched into the foreground with It Was Just an Accident, a brilliant and bewildering depiction of Iran’s harsh normality. Using dark comedy as a tool to illustrate societal oppression, it’s another bold and brave picture from a fearless filmmaker.
Cinema Perspective 