The even pace of “It Was Just an Accident,” an Iranian film playing at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center starting on Nov. 14, keeps us on tenterhooks through to the end.
The underlying moral dilemma of revenge versus mercy drives the narrative, which literally begins with an accident. A man and his wife, along with their gleeful child, are happily driving along in a car along a dark, deserted road when they hit a dog. The man gets out and walks, with a noticeable limp from an artificial leg, over to the animal, to discover he has killed it. When they drive away, the child is distraught, but her mother says, “God surely put it in our path for a reason.” The daughter is not pacified, responding, “He killed a dog. God has nothing to do with it.” Her mother puts an end to the conversation: “It’s not his fault. He didn’t do it on purpose.”
The ethical question of fault and taking responsibility for one’s actions comes to the forefront when the car breaks down, setting off a chain of events. At the garage, mechanic Vahid hears the man’s voice, and noticing his limp, believes him to be his former sadistic jailhouse captor, Eghbal, or “Peg Leg” (Ebrahim Azizi), from when he was a political prisoner.
The next day, Vahid arrives in a van on a busy street filled with cars and stray dogs perilously crossing at random, echoing the beginning of the film and putting our nerves on edge for another accident. In a remarkable move, Vahid captures Eghbal, who vociferously denies being his former captor. Determined to exact revenge, Vahid tells him, “You think a life of misery has erased my memory –– I’d know the squeak of your artificial leg anywhere. That atrocious sound still rings in my ear. You ruined my life.”
To avoid spoilers, let’s just say that Vahid hesitates to kill him, unsure at the last minute. Instead, he sets out to confirm his captive’s identity. His first stop is with fellow prisoner Salar (George Hashemzadeh), who insists, even if it is Peg Leg, “We aren’t killers. We’re not like them. There’s no need to dig graves. They’ve done it themselves. It’s your ideals you’d be burying.”
Nonetheless, desperate to confirm Eghbal’s identity, Vahid goes on to entreat other prisoners abused by this captor to determine whether he is Peg Leg. The journey with this colorful and disparate set of characters unfolds with many twists and turns, as each person’s beliefs of what should be Eghbal’s fate bob and weave, creating a thriller infused with a moral edge.
Making “It Was Just an Accident” is an act of courage. The New York Times review notes that it is the first film that writer and director Jafar Panahi has made since his release in 2023, after spending seven months in prison in Tehran for inquiring about other detained filmmakers. (He was also arrested in 2010, sentenced for what was called “propaganda against the state.”) Panahi based his film on accounts he heard from fellow prisoners, and shot it covertly because he didn’t want to submit it to the Iranian authorities who oversee the media.
The New York Times review perfectly sums up the heart of “It Was Just an Accident,” which won top prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival: “It is a cry from the heart, a comic howl in the dark, and one of the year’s essential movies. The premise — victimized men and women turn the tables on their victimizer — is the stuff of law and culture, daydreams and nightmares.”
“It Was Just an Accident” screens on Friday, Nov. 14, at the M.V. Film Center. For tickets and information, visit mvfilmsociety.com.
