Dir: Jafar Panahi | Drama 102′ 2025
Jafar Panahi’s 2025 Palme d’Or winner investigates the domino effects of a minor car accident in the desert surrounding Tehran. Querulous and overlong – even at less than two hours – the Iranian filmmaker nevertheless makes a strong political message.
It was Just an Accident was not the best, nor the most enjoyable film in the competition line-up, but one of the most urgent in exposing, once again, Iran’s harsh regime through a story of revenge. The stunning settings are captured on long takes with inventive framing.
The accident involves the death of a stray dog run over and killed by Eghbal, a family man driving home with his wife and little daughter. Not much damage is done to the car but the man decides to drive to Vahid’s repair shop, where the owner notices an odd noise that somehow connects with something from the past.
The next day Vahid decides to follow the man after becoming convinced Eghbal tortured him during a recent spell in prison. He kidnaps Eghbal and tries to bury him in the desert in a shocking sequence.
Vahid then forces the man to reveal his identity as the prison guard who tortured him for supporting workers’ rights. Obviously this all leads to Vahid having to gather up various other witnesses to back up his claim. And herein begins a protracting argument about how to meet out a punishment, and a drawn out moral debate that centres on the motives of the various characters, as we are forced to contemplate the human issues at the film’s core. @MeredithTaylor
PALME D’OR WINNER | CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 2025