A film by Jafar Panahi
With: Vahid Mobasseri, Maryam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi, Hadis Paak Baten, Majid Panahi, Mohammad Ali Eliyas Mehr, George Hashem Zadeh, Delmaz Najafi, Afsaneh Najm Abadi
Night driver Eghbal, en route with his pregnant wife, kills a dog. Stranded, he seeks help at Vahid’s garage, unaware his rescuer believes him to be the prison officer who tortured him. Convinced, Vahid abducts Eghbal to bury him alive, but doubts soon arise. To confirm Eghbal’s identity, Vahid enlists fellow victims. During their ride, they contemplate the morality of killing their captive and whether he actually is who they believe him to be.
Our rate: **
As interesting as Panahi‘s latest films seemed to us, as a good student of Kiarostami, It was just an accident leaves us much more cold. Based on a story reminiscent of Polanski‘s Death and the Maiden, he inserts plot twists, mostly with deliberate comic effect, and opts for a very calculated and mathematical 1+1+1+1 narrative structure, element by element. This conceptual approach, which is also found in many of Asghar Farahdi‘s films, gives the film a didactic tone to what is nevertheless a good subject (how to react to torturers who choose to serve an oppressive system), but above all reminds us at every moment that we are watching fiction. The introduction of several moral dilemmas, which could change the minds of each of the victims, again in a very unnatural way, even if it produces some comical moments, contributes just as much to the artificiality of the whole, which, on an intellectual level, does not dazzle us either. This is therefore not a masterpiece in Panahi‘s career.