Dir: Jafar Panahi | Drama 102′ 2025 | Farsi
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 about the lethal use of violence by the authorities in modern day Iran.
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 but characters argue and fight from start to finish making this unpleasant to watch, as you strain to read the subtitles with increasing irritation trying to make sense of the dialogue.
It starts with an accident involving 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 him 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. Still angry at the crime, Vahid 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 these sequences take place more or less in the same location, so there’s not much to keep us entertained visually apart from the the constant and protracted arguing about how to mete out a punishment, along with 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. Panahi eventually gets all this off his chest but we are not edified by the tedious process. @MeredithTaylor
IN UK CINEMAS 27 APRIL 2026 | PALME D’OR WINNER | CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 2025