‘It Was Simply an Accident’ overview: Iranian thriller questions vengeance

“It Was Simply an Accident” begins with a misdirection, and it received’t be the final. For the movie’s first eight minutes, we’re embedded within the lifetime of Rashad (Ebrahim Azizi), an bizarre Iranian driving via the evening along with his younger daughter and pregnant spouse.

All of a sudden, the quiet is shattered by a jolt of the automobile and an upsetting thud. Rashad rapidly realizes that, out in the course of nowhere, he has hit a canine, and now his automobile is sputtering and stalled. In his desperation, he manages to discover a lonely restore store. However Jafar Panahi’s incisive drama, which received the Palme d’Or at Cannes, isn’t actually about Rashad. Quickly, he’ll take a backseat to the movie’s precise fundamental characters. Seems, Rashad is our villain. Nicely, possibly. Revenge could be a difficult factor.

For the final 15 years, Panahi has most likely spent appreciable time fascinated by the relative deserves of retribution. Twice imprisoned by the Iranian authorities throughout that interval on the laughable grounds that he was conducting “propaganda in opposition to the state,” the celebrated 65-year-old writer-director has subsequently made a number of movies in secret, defying a ban he has slyly sidestepped and outright mocked. (The primary of these unlawful motion pictures, launched in 2011 when it was sneaked out of Iran on a USB stick, cheekily bore the title “This Is Not a Movie.”) Ever since, his work has grappled along with his stifling new actuality — he additionally was forbidden to go away the nation for greater than a decade — through narratives that deal in paranoia and oppression.

“It Was Simply an Accident” tackles these themes as immediately as any of his post-imprisonment movies, though not initially. When Rashad arrives at that restore store, the story shifts perspective, introducing us to Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), a mechanic who’s startled when he hears a well-recognized squeak as soon as Rashad begins pacing the ground. Vahid hasn’t set eyes on Rashad, however that particular sound triggers traumatic reminiscences: He in some way is aware of this man. Not lengthy after, Vahid kidnaps him.

Minimize to a grave Vahid has dug within the desert that he throws the blindfolded, tied-up and terrified Rashad into. Vahid tells him he is aware of his title isn’t Rashad. It’s Eghbal — or “Peg Leg,” a nickname in honor of his prosthetic leg that squeaked at any time when he moved. That is the federal government lackey who tortured him years earlier. Vahid might have himself been blindfolded throughout these grueling interrogations, however he’ll always remember that sound. And now Rashad should die.

Regardless of his synthetic leg, Rashad insists Vahid is mistaken, begging for his life. Together with his dangerous again and kidney points, Vahid appears essentially damaged — his imprisonment clearly did irreparable hurt — and he begins doubting himself. What if he’s captured an harmless man? Knocking Rashad unconscious and stuffing him in a trunk behind his van, Vahid rapidly drives round city monitoring down others who have been tortured by Peg Leg. They embody Golrokh (Hadis Pakbaten), who’s nearing her marriage ceremony day, wearing her robe for photographs; estranged former lovers Shiva (Mariam Afshari) and Hamid (Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr); and Golrokh’s fiancé Ali (Panahi’s nephew Majid), who was not detained however erroneously believes he is aware of the whole lot that his bride-to-be endured in jail.

They make for an odd fraternity, sad to be reminded of their shared horror. However none of them is absolutely assured that Rashad is Peg Leg — they by no means noticed his face — though Hamid swears he acknowledges his torturer’s foul breath. The others categorical misgivings about killing somebody on a hunch. The volcanic-tempered Hamid needs justice now.

In a film stuffed with heightened feelings and anxious uncertainty, “It Was Simply an Accident” (which is France’s entry for the worldwide movie Oscar) glides between genres, too slippery to be nailed down. Panahi dabbles within the street film, the revenge thriller, even the “getting the band again collectively” comedy. There’s additionally a stray reference to “Ready for Godot” and, similar to Beckett’s traditional play, Panahi’s movie is elemental, its each understated second fraught with that means. As he has carried out often, the writer-director works with a principally nonprofessional forged, which provides to the sense of on a regular basis lives torn aside by a brutal regime.

Panahi has a knack for tethering easy narratives to bigger political and social points. (His entertaining 2006 movie “Offside” was constructed round some decided younger girls attempting to attend a soccer match, which is outlawed to them because of Iran’s gender apartheid.) “It Was Simply an Accident” compellingly challenges our surety of what we’re watching as these characters debate what ought to be carried out. Might the mild-mannered Rashad actually be a torturer? Ought to Hamid’s righteous fury or Vahid’s rationality carry the day? Finally, Rashad isn’t simply invisible on display screen but additionally immaterial, Panahi turning the kidnapping into one thing far trickier: a meditation on how a rustic’s residents can ever transfer on from the cruelty that has been meted out by these in energy. Killing Rashad received’t cease Iran’s regime, however maybe it might probably present chilly consolation.

With its deft use of lengthy takes throughout scenes of sustained depth, “It Was Simply an Accident” is meticulously composed whereas exuding an air of spontaneity. Maybe inevitably, the ethical drama is considerably hemmed in by its central thriller: Both Rashad is Peg Leg or he isn’t. But when “It Was Simply an Accident” lacks the conceptual audacity of Panahi’s “This Is Not a Movie” or 2022’s “No Bears,” the movie’s easy narrative proves to be simply one other feint, disguising the writer-director’s anger and sorrow at his personal mistreatment and that of so many Iranians.

Certainly, “It Was Simply an Accident” might be seen as Panahi’s try and work via his personal warring responses to his imprisonment, with totally different characters giving voice to his conflicted emotions. Sooner or later, audiences will study the reality about Rashad, resulting in a ultimate, ambiguous scene that’s as disturbing because the sound of a automobile hanging a canine. Revenge could be a difficult factor. So can attempting to show the web page.