1317 It Was Just an Accident

[brundlefly]

Jafar Panahi's It Was Just an Accident.

[hearthesilence]

Jafar Panahi's It Was Just An Accident will open October 15 in the United States. Neon appears to intend to campaign it alongside Sentimental Value for the major non-acting Oscar categories.

IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT (Jafar Panahi, Iran, 2025) – I don’t know that Panahi has ever made a bad film (and I think I’ve seen them all), but this one is so complete that it might just rise to the top. It’s a story of revenge deferred and frustrated (often in incongruously comic terms) that balances humour and horror and tension (it occurs to me that my top five are all oddball thrillers of some kind), shot through with a casual formal mastery. The ending is sheer perfection. Life goes back to normal.

This was my favorite film of the festival so far, and by far the best Panahi I've seen (though I have not seen close to them all). It's oddly hysterical and breezy, in an extremely organic fashion, while maintaining a deep sense of unease and never letting you lose sight of the dramatic stakes at its core. Panahi uses at least three or four of the most effective long takes I've witnessed in some time, from the opening shot to the stark climaxof my problem with the movie - even embedded in a half-compliment: It just felt like a rough draft.

Jafar Panahi's It Was Just an Accident started its run on Tuesday night, but again, after the visa issues nearly prevented his first visit to the U.S. in 25 years, Neon pulled out all the stops with a string of appearances in NYC that wrapped up last night. (As mentioned, this was preceded by appearances elsewhere, including in Los Angeles.) When he first got here, you could see the excitement filmmakers like Jim Jarmusch and Martin Scorsese had in meeting him, and Scorsese's meeting alone became a high-profile event, but it's pretty amazing to see how humble and down-to-earth he remains. He basically stayed around Lincoln Center all evening yesterday with three different Q&A's lined up, and in between two screenings, it was surreal seeing him just hanging out in the lobby chatting with others who spoke Farsi. (Man, if there was ever a time I wish I was fluent, that was it.) If you didn't know who he was, you'd probably think he was a father or uncle hanging out with his family. But of course he was kind of treated like a rock star, with fans gathering around him after the screenings, taking selfies, etc. even though I imagine most of them couldn't really talk with him due to the language barrier. I've been seeing his films for over 20 years now, but this is easily the most attention I've seen given to him and really any film opening for an Iranian film. (tbf, A Separation got plenty of attention, it just took word-of-mouth to spread first, and I wasn't around to see how Abbas Kiarostami's films opened in NYC or anywhere else. I deeply regret missing an appearance Kiarostami made over a decade ago at someplace that wasn't a movie theater, but imagine he must've made personal appearances here before then.)

[beamish14]

Jafar Panahi's It Was Just an Accident started its run on Tuesday night, but again, after the visa issues nearly prevented his first visit to the U.S. in 25 years, Neon pulled out all the stops with a string of appearances in NYC that wrapped up last night. (As mentioned, this was preceded by appearances elsewhere, including in Los Angeles.) When he first got here, you could see the excitement filmmakers like Jim Jarmusch and Martin Scorsese had in meeting him, and Scorsese's meeting alone became a high-profile event, but it's pretty amazing to see how humble and down-to-earth he remains. He basically stayed around Lincoln Center all evening yesterday with three different Q&A's lined up, and in between two screenings, it was surreal seeing him just hanging out in the lobby chatting with others who spoke Farsi. (Man, if there was ever a time I wish I was fluent, that was it.) If you didn't know who he was, you'd probably think he was a father or uncle hanging out with his family. But of course he was kind of treated like a rock star, with fans gathering around him after the screenings, taking selfies, etc. even though I imagine most of them couldn't really talk with him due to the language barrier. I've been seeing his films for over 20 years now, but this is easily the most attention I've seen given to him and really any film opening for an Iranian film. (tbf, A Separation got plenty of attention, it just took word-of-mouth to spread first, and I wasn't around to see how Abbas Kiarostami's films opened in NYC or anywhere else. I deeply regret missing an appearance Kiarostami made over a decade ago at someplace that wasn't a movie theater, but imagine he must've made personal appearances here before then.)

He didn’t make it to Los Angeles!

[hearthesilence]

Oh yes he did!

[beamish14]

Oh yes he did!

Wow. Well, he couldn’t make it to The Circle/The White Balloon at the across-town Los Feliz 3

[bearcuborg]

It Was Just an Accident is one of the better films I’ve seen this year. When Jafar Panahi says anyone can act, it’s just a matter of casting them correctly - this film serves as a fine example. Wonderful performances all around, even from the dogs in 2 particular scenes.

Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr (Hamid) comes on to the screen with a Mifune like intensity, Mariam Afshari (Shiva) could easily be nominated for an academy award, and the lead, Vahid Mobasseri, finds the right balance between the pain and humor in coming to terms with an endless dilemma.

Often laugh out loud funny, and beautifully shot. A bit of Death and the Maiden and The Trouble With Harry.

[Swift]

I was astounded to read afterwards that all but one of the cast were not professional actors. Obviously Panahi commonly works this way but I would've thought for sure that Mariam Afshari (as an example) was a professional. As you mentioned, she is a stand out with her extradorinary final confrontational scene in particular being an obvious highlight.

[bearcuborg]

I think I read somewhere she’s served as a PA or AD on some of his projects. God, she’s so good-I wouldn’t be surprised if she directs a movie of her own one of these days.

[therewillbeblus]

It Was Just an Accident is one of the better films I’ve seen this year. When Jafar Panahi says anyone can act, it’s just a matter of casting them correctly - this film serves as a fine example. Wonderful performances all around, even from the dogs in 2 particular scenes.

Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr (Hamid) comes on to the screen with a Mifune like intensity, Mariam Afshari (Shiva) could easily be nominated for an academy award, and the lead, Vahid Mobasseri, finds the right balance between the pain and humor in coming to terms with an endless dilemma.

Often laugh out loud funny, and beautifully shot. A bit of Death and the Maiden and The Trouble With Harry.

I wrote a bit about this already in the Festival Circuit thread, but I've been thinking a bit about the ending, and how it, too, nails a hybrid of tones.

Spoiler

The brief interaction is both affirming and unnerving. By showing up at all, Peg Leg is letting him know he can get to him, but also does the same courtesy of letting him go. So what's being communicated? The conflict is both ‘let go of’ and paradoxically reinforced by the move. Even if the intent wasn't sinister (which is instinctual to read it as, and it has to be on some level), and was meant to validate the treaty, it still binds the men for life with now-layered shared memories of pain. There's no action or non-action that allows them to escape.

It'd be pretty funny if this and Friendship wind up being the two laugh-out-loud funniest movies of the year

[Red Screamer]

Huh, I read the ending in a totally different way

Spoiler

as a sound he hears but may or, most likely, may not be real (the unusual close-up highlights the moment’s subjective intensity); something of a metaphor for the fact that even though he got something like revenge, the scars haven’t left him and won’t. The decision to let Peg Leg go is also a commitment to continuing to fight this internal battle, and the ending is him realizing just how much strength it will take.

[zedz]

I’m with Red Screamer. All we know for sure is that he’s back to square one, never knowing when he’s going to hear that sound creeping up behind him.

[therewillbeblus]

I guess I read a similar idea more literal, in that he’s tethered to this even under the best of circumstances, but well said

[brundlefly]

NEON has posted Panahi's 2021 pandemic short "Life" to their YouTube channel along with a very brief clip from a conversation at the NYFF between Panahi and Martin Scorsese.

[hearthesilence]

Jonathan Rosenbaum apparently wasn't a fan, though I find his argument pretty bizarre and grossly inaccurate:

Accident is a feel-good atrocity film (which is how Dave Kehr described Roger & Me), designed to entertain, i.e. give closure to issues that should remain open.

He didn't clarify what that closure may be, but I certainly wouldn't say that about a film that (for me) laid out an unsettling and unknown future where fear and the urge for horrendous violence remained a present threat to any peaceful co-existance, even under the most plausibly optimistic circumstances.

[Brian C]

Yeah, that’s confusing. Among other things, it’s pretty consistent in showing how morally hollow the regime’s theocracy is even in smaller everyday ways, for example with the solicitation of bribes from those in power, even aside from the regime-sponsor torture.

It’s such an angry film! And Rosenbaum watched it and thought the message was “hey let’s just let bygones be bygones here, shall we?”

[domino harvey]

Rosenbaum has always been annoyingly moralistic regarding violence. Remember the whole meltdown over No Country For Old Men?

[hearthesilence]

The histrionic posturing in general is getting tiresome. I don't disagree that the best of Panahi's earlier films are his greatest work, but he blasted all the critical praise that accompanied This Is Not a Film as an "insult" to Panahi and has pretty much continued that line of thought, claiming any praise for his films now were mostly for political reasons. He's conceded time and time again that he's overrated or underrated films as pushback against what he perceived to be an incorrect critical consensus, and while he's far from the only person to do that, it doesn't change how dubious the practice remains.

[spectre]

For what it's worth, in the same post being quoted above, he said that "the same charge could be brought against Offside", even though he finds it "far better" than It Was Just an Accident (which I'd agree with, though I don't think either film is among Panahi's best) – so I don't think Rosenbaum's beef is solely with Panahi's post-imprisonment work.

Beyond that, I'm not sure precisely what Rosenbaum means by "giving closure",

Spoiler

but I did find Peg-Leg's confession in the climactic scene a bit cheap and unbelievable, even if I understand that Panahi is trying to confront us with what he feels the regime's enforcers are actually like – unrepentant and full of hate for those they wield power over – rather than offering the more humanist tale of forgiveness, universal humanity, etc. that some viewers might have preferred, particularly after the first half of the film culminating in the hospital visit kind of sets us up for that. The film's thesis might be something like: "some people really are evil, and the desire for revenge is understandable when they've done you or your loved ones harm, but there's really no way of enacting that satisfactorily without corrupting your own values." I'm undecided whether that middle road he takes is ultimately a cop-out, but I definitely didn't love the ambiguous ending – which, together with the overall narrative thrust, makes this his most Farhadi-esque film, and as such a far cry from less schematic work like Crimson Gold, Tehran Taxi or 3 Faces. So if that's what Rosenbaum is gesturing at, I guess I kind of agree?

[hearthesilence]

But wouldn't your criticism of the final scenes still go against the idea that this is a "feel-good atrocity film" that gives closure?

[spectre]

That's where I'd like to hear a follow-up from Rosenbaum articulating what he actually means by that! Perhaps his Offside analogy offers a clue as I would say it's a very different film in tone than It Was Just an Accident (in the earlier film, the regime's frontliners are essentially just innocent kids themselves enforcing absurd rules that nobody really understands – maybe that's what he means by "feel-good"?). Both films are somewhat narratively open-ended too, so it seems clear that this isn't about "closure" in a narrative-structure sense; I assume he's referring more to what he sees as pandering to the audience.

But perhaps in general it's not really fair to jump on an offhand Facebook comment, remove it from that context and treat it as a text to critique. I'm sure if he had written an actual review we'd have something meatier to respond to.

[Brian C]

But perhaps in general it's not really fair to jump on an offhand Facebook comment, remove it from that context and treat it as a text to critique. I'm sure if he had written an actual review we'd have something meatier to respond to.

Seems like it's just as fair as a professional film critic using an offhand Facebook comment to slam a film, though, right?

[spectre]

Yeah but social media doesn't always lend itself to considered discussion, and we don't owe it to the art we consume to always have a structured and well-thought-through critique ready to go. And on the flipside of your analogy, Rosenbaum (long retired from professional film criticism, and merely taking part in a chat among Facebook friends) is offering his thoughts on an entire film he watched, not a small fragment of it, so it's not really the same thing at all.

As I see it, referring to It Was Just an Accident as "a feel-good atrocity film designed to entertain" isn't so much slamming or dismissing the film as identifying what he sees as a moral shortcoming in how it handles its material – which has, for better or worse, been a consistent theme in Rosenbaum's criticism pretty much forever and what many of us value about his writing.

I would of course be interested to hear which choices he thinks could have been made that would have sidestepped that problem, but that would involve engaging on a platform where he has a right of response. It goes without saying that filmmakers and other artists (and film critics, for that matter) don't generally get that, but I think that's just part of the implicit contract of artistic creation/consumption – and I'm glad that, collectively, we're not generally shy about how we engage with that work.

[diamonds]

Spoiler

…but I did find Peg-Leg's confession in the climactic scene a bit cheap and unbelievable, even if I understand that Panahi is trying to confront us with what he feels the regime's enforcers are actually like – unrepentant and full of hate for those they wield power over – rather than offering the more humanist tale of forgiveness, universal humanity, etc. that some viewers might have preferred, particularly after the first half of the film culminating in the hospital visit kind of sets us up for that.

The film's thesis might be something like: "some people really are evil, and the desire for revenge is understandable when they've done you or your loved ones harm, but there's really no way of enacting that satisfactorily without corrupting your own values." I'm undecided whether that middle road he takes is ultimately a cop-out, but I definitely didn't love the ambiguous ending […]

This is interesting. (I hope you'll forgive my using your post as a jumping-off point for some scattered thoughts, rather than offering a more direct response.)

Spoiler

I had no issue with Peg Leg's confession; I found his gloating remorselessness and zealotry in the face of death/martyrdom harrowing and perfectly believable. It was actually when the scene veered toward a "humanist tale of forgiveness angle" near the end that the film threw me a bit. I'm referring to when Peg Leg breaks down in tears, confessing to having "a guilty conscience" and revealing that humiliation he experienced in childhood may have contributed to his treatment of the prisoners.

Initially, I found this turn unbelievable, especially considering how resolute and hateful he was mere moments before. Unlike the comic portraits of the youth enforcers in Offside, which strike me as effortlessly sympathetic and true, there's an element of exertion here, almost like Panahi is forcing himself to imagine a captor that is less inhuman. Upon some reflection, I can see it as an artistic gesture that mirrors Vahid's decision to spare Peg Leg; Panahi's last-minute decision to humanize this avatar of the regime is a comparable act of mercy. It's as if Panahi is saying, "Okay, I know very well what you people are like, because you have shown me. And I hate you for what you stand for and for what you did to me and people like me, and I want to kill you. But the only way I can't is if I see you as human with some capacity for redemption. So in order to preserve my own humanity, that is what I'll do."

I liked the ending a lot, a wonderfully simple shot that contains two sources of ambiguity. The first, obviously, is the question of the sound: is Peg Leg's squeak real or imagined? The second, more interesting, is the refusal to show us Vahid's reaction. Is it fear? Or perhaps anger? Maybe in this moment he's regretting his decision, and genuinely wishing he could kill him right now. What I think this final shot puts across most profoundly is a simple, deep uneasiness with having to share the world with people like Peg Leg, which is a consequence of letting them live. It somehow recalled for me the interview with Alpha Robertson that closes Spike Lee's 4 Little Girls (incidentally another film about a violent history coexisting with a more peaceful present). Robertson was the mother of Carole Rosamond Robertson, one of the (titular) girls whom the KKK murdered in Birmingham. Lee wisely chooses to close the film—which contains, among other things, an interview with the grotesque, still-breathing George Wallace—with this interview: a simple close-up on Robertson's face as she speaks, candidly and disarmingly, of her life in the decades after the bombing and of trying to live with anger and hate. The shot that closes It Was Just an Accident is in some ways the opposite of the shot that closes Lee's: here a character who remains silent, a close-up of the back of a head. But I feel him wrestling with the exact same feelings.

I've noticed that some of the more critical reviews of this film—not you, spectre!—tend to focus on the film's discourse around the ethics of revenge/murder to the exclusion of all the life surrounding that discourse in the film, bustling at the edges of the frame. I'd maybe like to expound on this point later, but for me, this is where the film is most meaningful and beautiful; while the ethical issues aren't unimportant, they're perhaps secondary to some of the other aspects contained in the more far-reaching question Panahi is asking (maybe even mostly to himself), which is: how do you live?

[zedz]

I read the breakdown you refer to as

Spoiler

a desperate, cynical ploy to save his own life (Is this what you want? Okay, here it is.) And it works. Peg Leg knows that basically decent, normal people are easy to manipulate. These are the words he would have heard from his own victims.

[diamonds]

That thought did cross my mind, yeah.

Spoiler

Whether it's sincere or merely a ploy, that he would want to save his own life rather than become a martyr—fulfilling what was moments before his stated goal—speaks to perhaps some (newfound?) tension between his convictions and a "human" will to live. I suppose the breakdown doesn't even have to be fully one or the other, i.e. the sob stories about his past and conscience are a ploy, but the desperate desire and pleas to see his newborn son are sincere. It's that crack in the exterior, that kernel of humanity that I think is important for Panahi or that he might feel he needs.