This is the brand new film from Iranian director Jafar Panahi, which also saw him take out the Palme d'Or for Best Picture at this year's Cannes Film Festival. In my eyes, Panahi is a superstar of international cinema and the main reason for my love affair with Iranian cinema, after I fell for his brilliant debut feature “The White Balloon”. I wish I could brag and say I was a fan of Panahi's right from the start, but I think his latest film was either “The Circle” or “Crimson Gold” when MIFF did a retrospective of all his previous films and I got the chance to see the masterpiece that is “The White Balloon” (along with everything else he had made).
Panahi's latest film “It Was Just An Accident” sees him tackle a moral dilemma when a guy, Vahid, who was a political prisoner five years prior and tortured by the regime, thinks he has found his torturer after recognising the distinct squeaking sound of his artificial leg. After kidnapping the man, and beginning to bury him alive, Vahid starts to doubt that he has the right man, due to his visceral and believable denials, so goes to find other people tortured by this man (who they nicknamed “Peg-Leg”) to get confirmation of his identity. The crux of the dilemma Panahi is exploring in his film is that if this man actually is the torturer that they think he is, does that then give them the right to enact their revenge? Will this revenge heal the trauma from their past or only damage them further as they go against their personal ideals, ultimately proving that they are no better than the man tied up in front of them? The film has a lot of meat to chew on, but in regards to the benefits of revenge, the film that I couldn't help being reminded of was Park Chan-wook's “Sympathy For Lady Vengeance”, particularly towards the end of that film, when the parents of the murdered children debate the merits of taking revenge (and thus killing their child's murderer) and whether or not it will benefit them or destroy them further by going down such a violent path. Obviously both films are stylistically very different, but definitely tackle similar issues.
There is so much I find interesting in “It Was Just An Accident”, and one of those things is that because each of these people were blindfolded when tortured, none of them can truly positively identify this man as “Peg-Leg”. At the end of the day, they can only assume but never be sure which forces them into an interesting place where they will have to beat and torture this man in an attempt to get confirmation that he is who they think he is (ie. Coercing a confession), which is the exact same crime they are accusing this man of, so what makes them better off then him or more just to use these same techniques?
I actually think Panahi makes some great directorial decisions in “It Was Just An Accident”, and the first of these is when Vahid recognises the sound of the artificial leg, while at work. Panahi cleverly obstructs the man's face via objects and his framing, so Vahid only focuses on the sound of the leg, which is all he would know anyway since he was blindfolded. I also loved that he littered his film with symbols of the future like a bride in her wedding dress, the birth of a baby boy, and even the presence of the young sister of this newborn baby. All these are symbolic of the fact that there is still beauty in the world and so much to still live for, while he is dealing with a group of characters haunted by the past and struggling to move on from it all. These are very damaged people (some physically), but Panahi makes sure he gives both his film and its characters hope; it is just up to them to notice it. One element in the film that did surprise me though was Panahi's decision to reveal the truth behind the man's identity, and definitively tell us whether or not he is indeed “Peg-Leg”, as I was sure that he would leave this ambiguous as it makes the drama and decisions the characters need to make in the film that much stronger.
Whilst it is obvious that there is an anger within Panahi from the story he is telling, I actually felt that the constant tonal shifts in “It Was Just An Accident” worked against the film and diminished it's a power. For large portions of the film, “It Was Just An Accident” plays like a nail-biting moral thriller, but Panahi also regularly throws in a number of comedic scenes, which then breaks the tension. I'm not saying these lighter scenes are bad, because the scenes of the group saving the man's wife and getting her to a hospital so she can give birth safely, is actually really sweet and heartfelt, it just diminishes the thriller aspects. I suppose the purpose of these scenes is to have a point of difference where they can actually show where and how they are different to a man like “Peg-Leg”. The comedy then comes when Vahid buys pastries for everyone to celebrate the birth before one character points out the absurdity of the moment, that Vahid is buying pastries for the family of their (possible) torturer. One element where you can really feel Panahi's anger is when it is revealed why these characters were arrested by the regime in the first place, which was because they dared to protest for their rights against their workplace who hadn't paid them for eight months. Copping so much physical and mental abuse just for fighting for your rights as a human being; with Panahi himself recently being a political prisoner of Iran, you cannot help but wonder if the character's experiences mirror his own, or if he suffered similar abuse. The other element where you can feel Panahi's bemusement is in the corruption of his country and the way everyone you deal with demands a tip of some kind, which does lead to a funny moment, when a character explains he cannot give the security guard a tip as he has no cash on him, and the guy proceeds to produce an eftpos machine for him to use instead.
So you may be wondering what the title, “It Was Just An Accident”, actually means, and it has to do with the opening scene of the film when a family travelling on an under-lit street at night, hit and kill a stray dog. The young girl in the backseat of the car is devastated by the dog's death, but her mother tells her “it was just an accident. Maybe God put the dog in our path for some reason”, which turns out there may be some truth to that, but nothing good will come from it for her family.
Overall, whilst I thought “It Was Just An Accident” was a very good film, I have to admit that I think it has been a little overrated, and that it's win of the Palme d'Or was heavily influenced by Jafar Panahi's physical appearance at the festival, which was the first time he has been allowed to leave Iran for the past twenty years. I do not begrudge his win at all though because he is a brilliant filmmaker, who is as brave as they come, and there is also a whole lot of good in “It Was Just An Accident”, with the final thirty seconds of the film being utterly breathtaking and total perfection. Do not get me wrong, “It Was Just An Accident” is a very good film, but after all it's praise from the Cannes Film Festival, I was expecting an “exceptional” film.
3.5 Stars.
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