Reviews
It Was Just An Accident
Reviewed by Stephen Pye
Last week we had the latest from the incredible Iranian director Jafar Panahi, 'It Was Just an Accident'. When he turned up at the Cannes Film Festival last year, it was seen by some as close to a miracle. Since he was arrested in 2010 and charged with making anti-government propaganda, Panahi had been forbidden to travel outside Iran. He'd also been banned from making films, though he has got around that restriction with great ingenuity and continues to shoot films in secret.
But then, in 2022, Panahi was arrested again and imprisoned. When he announced, seven months later, that he was beginning a hunger strike, many feared it would end with his death. Instead, he was released after two days and has been free to travel ever since.
It's an astonishing real-life story, one that, for tension and peril, may well rival the one that Panahi tells in this, his new film. This remarkable film, which ended up winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes, feels like a liberated work in every sense.
Panahi's films are usually elliptical and parabolic, for obvious reasons, 'It Was Just An Accident' is not ; it is a pure blast of anti-authoritarian rage, filmed in secret in Iran with a wonderful script by the writer and poet Mehdi Mahmondian (under arrest at present).
The film is part road movie, part revenge thriller, and also a commentary on the heinous theocracy governing Iran and the systematic torture of citizens through the auspices of the Revolutionary Guard.
The film concerns the capture of one such torturer by his victims who transport him around in a trunk in a camper-van! Occasionally funny and Becket-like in its absurdity, the film, based on verbal testimony Panahi heard while imprisoned, describes the horror of state-terror and its lasting life-changing impact on its victims . It also allows us to see how those who torture, live ordinary lives.
The ending is one of the most impactful of any film I have seen!
But then, in 2022, Panahi was arrested again and imprisoned. When he announced, seven months later, that he was beginning a hunger strike, many feared it would end with his death. Instead, he was released after two days and has been free to travel ever since.
It's an astonishing real-life story, one that, for tension and peril, may well rival the one that Panahi tells in this, his new film. This remarkable film, which ended up winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes, feels like a liberated work in every sense.
Panahi's films are usually elliptical and parabolic, for obvious reasons, 'It Was Just An Accident' is not ; it is a pure blast of anti-authoritarian rage, filmed in secret in Iran with a wonderful script by the writer and poet Mehdi Mahmondian (under arrest at present).
The film is part road movie, part revenge thriller, and also a commentary on the heinous theocracy governing Iran and the systematic torture of citizens through the auspices of the Revolutionary Guard.
The film concerns the capture of one such torturer by his victims who transport him around in a trunk in a camper-van! Occasionally funny and Becket-like in its absurdity, the film, based on verbal testimony Panahi heard while imprisoned, describes the horror of state-terror and its lasting life-changing impact on its victims . It also allows us to see how those who torture, live ordinary lives.
The ending is one of the most impactful of any film I have seen!