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It Was Just an Accident

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It Was Just an Accident

Name: It Was Just an Accident
Director: Jafar Panahi
Genre: Crime/detective, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Released: 2025
Duration: 1 h 43 min

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Crime/detective
Drama

2025
Jafar Panahi
103 mins
12A

Summary

Thriller starring Vahid Mobasseri. Tehran mechanic Vahid kidnaps a man and drives him out to the desert, intending to kill him in the belief that the man was Vahid's interrogator in prison some years before. When the man protests, Vahid suddenly doubts his own judgement. So begins a fraught day as Vahid drives around the city trying to verify his captive's identity.

IMDB

Review

A star rating of 4 out of 5.

James Mottram

A chance encounter in modern-day Tehran sparks a cycle of violence in this cast-iron morality tale. Warehouse worker Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) spies family man Eghbal (Ebrahim Azizi) and kidnaps him, fully intent on burying him alive. He's convinced his captive is a state interrogator who tortured him in prison, but blindfolded during his ordeal, doubts creep in. Was this the man he heard? And so he gathers others - including photographer Shiva (Maryam Afshari) - who might be able to verify the prisoner's identity. Winner of the Cannes festival's prestigious Palme d'Or, this tense, taut thriller comes from acclaimed filmmaker Jafar Panahi (No Bears). Like his characters, he's been imprisoned by the Iranian authorities, as well as banned from film-making, and there's no escaping the film's in-baked sense of righteous anger. But Panahi wisely seasons the film with black comedy: witness two security guards who take a bribe (with a handheld credit card terminal!) to look the other way when they hear a ruckus in Vahid's van. A powerful, poignant meditation on the futility of vengeance.

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7.4/10