Farsi

IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT: trauma, revenge and complications

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Photo caption: Ebrahim Azizi (right) in IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT. Courtesy of NEON.

The powerful (and often funny) drama It Was Just an Accident begins with a minor driving incident that triggers memories of traumas Those memories spark a new life-and-death situation.

Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) is a workaday auto mechanic with a dodgy back. We later learn that he was locked up by the Iranian government and repeatedly tortured. Vahid was blindfolded during his ordeal, but he remembers the voice of the secret policeman who tormented him and the squeaky limp of his prosthetic leg. Now he hears what he believes is that voice and that squeak – and he impulsively kidnaps the man, intending revenge.

Problem is, the guy (Ebrahim Azizi) denies being the torturer and his explanation of his prosthetic leg is plausible. So Vahid tracks down former fellow prisoners to confirm the guy’s identity.

Vahid and his peers were not dissident ideologues, but just factory workers who complained about not being paid for months. Nevertheless, they were all severely traumatized by their experience, and each of them really, really hates their torturer.

Their suspect is sedated and trussed up inside a box in Vahid’s van, as Vahid picks up each of his witnesses. All of them have different personalities. Vahid is impulsive (obviously), and the photographer Shiva {Mariam Afshar} is clear-headed and decisive. One of them, Goli (Hadis Pakbaten), is in her wedding dress for a photo session and comes with a bewildered would-be groom (Majod Panahi). The most volatile one, Hamid (Mohammed Ali Elyasmehr) seems to be seriously mentally ill.

Mohammed Ali Elyasmehr, Majid Panahi and Hadis Pakbaten in IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT. Courtesy of NEON.

The motley group faces a moral question – is it just to kill the man who committed atrocities against them? Or would that act of violence lower them to the moral level of the hated regime?

And Vahid’s impulsiveness has presented them with a practical problem. There is the matter of kidnapping, whoever this guy is, so could they get away with letting him go? Would it be suicidal to release a vicious killer who knows where Vahid works? There doesn’t seem to be any way to put the toothpaste back into the tube.

As they careen around Tehran in a van with a live body in a box, circumstances get unpredictably more complicated – and absurdly funny – all the way to the emotionally devastating ending.

Mariam Afshari in IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT. Courtesy of NEON.

Written and directed by the acclaimed Jafar Panahi, It Was Just an Accident is a harsh critique of the Iranian government, both for its worst human rights violations and for its petty corruption. Making this film was an act of incredible courage by Panahi. Remarkably, Panahi shot this movie secretly, including even some scenes in in plain sight on the streets of Tehran.

Panahi is a critical and industry favorite because he is persecuted by the Iranian government. By supporting Panahi, the cinema world supports free expression and human rights in Iran.

He’s also a damn fine filmmaker, the only director to win the Golden Bear at the Berlinale, the Golden Lion at Venice, the Golden Leopard at Locarno and the Palm d’Or. How Panahi shot a movie this great IN SECRET is miraculous.

It Was Just an Accident won the Palm d’Or at Cannes and is high on my list of the Best Movies of 2025 – So Far. It’s now in theaters.

A HERO: Kafka, Iran-style

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Photo caption: Mohsen Tanabandeh, Saheh Karimai and Amir Jahidi in A HERO. Courtesy of Amazon Studios.

In A Hero, the latest from Iranian auteur Asghar Farhadi, Rahim (Amir Jahidi) finds himself entangled in a Kafkaesque web of Iranian law and social convention. To start with, Rahim is in debtor’s prison. That’s right – Rahim’s creditor has him incarcerated so he can’t work to pay off his debt. Of course, the creditor is Rahim’s ex-brother-in-law (Mohsen Tanabandeh), who seems to prefer ruining Rahim’s life to being repaid.

Rahim gets a two-day pass, so the clock is ticking – Rahim must get his creditor’s sign-off in his 48 hours of freedom, or he goes back to the slammer. Rahim’s secret girlfriend Farkondeh (Sahar Goldust) happens on a lost purse with gold coins, but fluctuations in the gold market mean that the trove isn’t enough to pay off the debt anyway.

[MILD SPOILER IN THIS PARAGRAPH}. In any case, Rahim feels sorry for whoever lost the gold coins, so he finds a way to return them. The absurdity of a guy in debtor’s prison returning some gold that he found fair and square is noted by the prison authorities, who call in the TV news crews for a Feel Good story. In his 15 minutes of celebrity, everything is lining up to help Rahim to collect donations and pay off enough of his debt to avoid reincarceration..

Unfortunately, the creditor ex-brother-in-law is so bitter that he won’t play along. Then Rahim’s luck turns bad and things start spinning out of control. Traditional family honor makes things worse.

Rahim’s young son (Saheh Karimai ) accompanies him throughout much of Rahim’s two-day dash and witnesses his dad’s indignities and desperation – a particularly poignant aspect of A Hero.

Jahidi delivers a fine performance as the lead, and excels at portraying Rahim’s sense of resignation. 

Farhadi, perhaps the world’s leading master of the family psychological drama, does not make Feel Good movies. That’s because he makes the audience care so much about his characters that we ache along with them. The payoff is that Farhadi delivers genuine human behavior and authentic human emotion.

I summarized his Oscar-winning film A Separation, which as “brilliant film/tough to watch”. That movie and his The Past and The Salesman all reflect life at its messiness – especially how life resists our desire to make everything tidy and symmetrical. 

Those previous Farhadi films are more universal than A Hero, which is very specific to Iranian institutions and customs that Farhadi is criticizing. There would be no plot at all if this were set in a Western nation – Rahim would just get an on-line loan to refinance his debt – and he would never see the inside of a prison. I found A Hero two steps down from his other work – the payoff doesn’t justify the squirming.

Farhadi is highly admired by the Academy of Motion Pictures, which loves to jab at the oppressive Iranian government by praising Farhadi, so it is telling that A Hero was NOT nominated for the Best International Picture Oscar.

A Hero is streaming on Amazon (included with Prime).

HIT THE ROAD: a funny family masks their tough choice

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Photo caption: Pantea Panahiha and Amin Simiar in HIT THE ROAD. Courtesy of Kino Lorber.

In Hit the Road, we join an Iranian family’s road trip. It’s a relatively uneventful journey through barren countryside, but it’s unforgettable because of the characters and the reason for their trip. Their motivation is more loaded than it first appears.

The 20-year old Big Brother (Amin Simiar) is driving the little four-door hatchback sedan, with Mom (Pantea Panahiha) in the front seat. Dad (Hasan Majuni) is sprawling in the middle of the back seat, his leg in a massive cast. The six-year-old Little Brother (Rayan Sarlak) is bouncing around the back. An old dog (literally on his last legs) is in the way-back.

The first thing we notice us that the little kid is very precocious and a tornado of energy, a naturally caffeinated rascal. He has no volume modulation dial, and this kid is going full blast all the time. Fortunately, he is really smart and mostly funny, and his parents have built up a tolerance, so they don’t bind and gag him (which, admittedly, briefly crossed my mind).

The second thing we notice is the banter between the mom, dad and little kid. They are sarcastic, always teasing, and hilariously deadpan. Everyone is constantly tossing off playful threats. Everyone, that is, except for Big Brother, who sits behind the wheel in stoic silence, steeped in melancholy.

That’s because he knows the real reason for the trip, which the parents have not truthfully disclosed to the kid brother. That reason is never made entirely explicit, but there’s a telling clue over halfway through.

[MILD SPOILER: Suffice it to say, sometimes parents must lose their child to save him.]

Hasan Majuni and Amin Simiar in HIT THE ROAD. Courtesy of Kino Lorber.

The acting is top-rate. Hasan Majuni is perfect as the dad, a guy you can imagine holding forth in front of the TV and bellowing, “Hey, bring me a kabob”. He is jovial and commanding, even when hobbling along on his cast. But when the dad is unwatched by anyone else, his thoughts are of what is ahead for his family – his look intensifies as it takes on loss, determination, grief and resignation.

Pantea Panahiha is just as excellent as the mom, caustically funny, but with strong emotions sometimes leaking out. She’s just trying to make sure the little kid doesn’t notice.

The Wife liked Hit the Road even more than I did. I found this especially significant since I generally enjoy both international cinema and challenging films more than she does. She particularly admired and was drawn in by the acting, especially by Majuni and Panahiha.

Rayan Sarlak in HIT THE ROAD. Courtesy of Kino Lorber.

Hit the Road is the first feature for writer-director Panah Panahi. Panahi clearly has a gift for making the most from a low budget, a tiny cast and a bleak landscape.

Hit the Road premiered at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight and then took to the festival circuit, including SFFILM 2022. It is now in theaters.

THE SALESMAN: an authentic slow burn with very high stakes

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Taraneh Alidoosti and Shahab Hosseini in THE SALESMAN. Photo: Cohen Media Group
Taraneh Alidoosti and Shahab Hosseini in THE SALESMAN. Photo: Cohen Media Group

The Salesman is another searing and authentic film from Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi. Set in contemporary Iran, a young educated, middle class couple (Shahab Hosseini and Taraneh Alidoosti) has to change apartments in a rush. He’s a literature teacher by day, and the two are starring in a production of Death of a Salesman. The new apartment is sketchy, and something traumatic happens to the wife, something that she says she can’t fully remember. He embarks on a whodunit while doing everything he can to support her – but it turns out that he’s not equipped to keep up with her reactions to events. By the end, the two must determine the fate of a third character, and the stakes are very high.

Farhadi is perhaps the world’s leading master of the family psychological drama. The two Farhadi films that have received wide release in the US are the award-winning A Separation and The Past . Those two films are constructed with astonishing brilliance and originality, and the audience shifts allegiance between the characters as Farhadi reveals each new layers of his stories. The story in The Salesman is more linear than in its sister dramas, but it is compelling nonetheless. Both A Separation and The Past can be rented on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and can be streamed from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Farhadi does not make Feel Good movies; his dramas are challenging. That’s because he makes the audience care so much about his characters that we ache along with them. The payoff is that Farhadi delivers genuine human behavior and authentic human emotion.