Iranian maverick Jafar Panahi's bluntly political film is a defiant rebuke of authoritarianism wrapped in a gripping thriller.
Mechanic Vahid is jarringly reminded of his time in an Iranian prison for being branded a "dissident" when he has a chance encounter with Eghbal, a man he strongly suspects to be his sadistic jailhouse captor. Panicked, Vahid rounds up some of his fellow ex-prisoners to try and confirm Eghbal's identity and determine what to do next. Panahi creates a deeply felt moral thriller, combining high stakes tension with unexpected humor and thoughtful, yet devastating, questions regarding persecution and revenge. [103 min; thriller, drama; Persian with English subtitles]
"It’s a film of overwhelmingly visceral emotion; impossible, then, to separate from what we imagine Panahi must feel himself. And yet, so often, we’ll see characters clamber over each other and wheel around their limbs like they’re in a Buster Keaton comedy." — Clarisse Loughrey, The Independent
"It Was Just an Accident plays like an ideal melding of the filmmaker Panahi was and the filmmaker he’s been forced to become. It’s an endlessly fascinating and extraordinarily powerful work." — Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture
"It Was Just an Accident is a taut and twisting revenge thriller loaded with heavyweight ethical quandaries. It is heartbreakingly explicit about what the well-drawn characters have suffered, but it asks whether they can ever be justified in using the same methods—abduction, torture—as their oppressors." — Nicholas Barber, BBC
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