It Was Just an Accident

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

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Jafar Panahi (“No Bears”), who has himself been sent to prison for his art, directs the tense and affecting “It Was Just an Accident.” Swift, compelling and threaded throughout with plenty of dark humor, this visceral study on the nature of revenge packs a punch and never lets go. Impactful and gripping, it is chock full of good performances and is 100% authentic.

During a quiet night, Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) an Azerbaijani garage worker who happens to be a former prisoner, notices family man (Ebrahim Azizi), his former torturer, by the squeaking sound of his artificial leg. Vahid was once blooded by Eghbal, his kidney severely injured.

Vahid decides to follow Eghbal. Then Vahid grabs an ax. After some anxious combat, he takes Eghbal by force, stuffing him in a trunk.

Suddenly wracked with guilt, Vahid is acutely uncertain whether he has the right man.

The tormented man asks strangers and acquaintances whether or not Eghbal is in fact the heinous man responsible for murders, beatings, and unresolvable traumas. Vahid’s acquaintance Ali (Majid Panahi) wants to kill the man, while a new bride Goli (Hadis Pakbaten) becomes enraged and vomits. Only the wedding photographer Shiva (Maryam Afshari) is almost certain the man is either innocent or not worth the trouble.

What follows is a wrenching volley of percussive invectives and insults, at times reaching the intensity of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (1966).

In the midst of the argument, Vahid discovers that Eghbal’s wife (Afssaneh Najmabadi) is pregnant and ill and takes her to the hospital without disclosing any information. Vahid bonds with Eghbal’s young daughter (Delmaz Najafi). The exchange is heartrending given that there was such violence preceding this encounter.

Savage and unflinching with a sensibility fitting Kafka, this eerie film which highlights the futility and mania of anger is in a class by itself.

Write Ian at ianfree11@yahoo.com