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.
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.
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.