Review: It Was Just An Accident — Jafar Panahi Turns Trauma Into Surreal, Dark Comedy

★★★★☆

It Was Just an Accident

Directed by: Jafar Panahi

Written by: Jafar Panahi

Starring: Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari

Release Date: October 1, 2025

A Dark, Surreal Road Through Memory and Violence

There is a dark absurdity to Jafar Panahi’s latest film, It Was Just an Accident. Late at night, a driver hits something on the road. The next morning, at a service station, he crosses paths with Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), a man who spent years as a political prisoner. Vahid will never forget the sound of the prosthetic leg worn by the man who tortured him.

Now, with political power shifted, Vahid is free. But trauma is stubborn. When he hears the sound of a prosthetic leg at the service station, he believes this man, Eghbal (Ebrahim Azizi), is the villain from his nightmares — the “Peg Leg” he hated and feared. Vahid decides to kidnap him. And bury him alive in the desert.

As Vahid drives into the desert with Eghbal bound and gagged in a metal container, doubt begins to creep in. He can’t remember which leg Peg Leg lost. He rarely saw the man’s face. The details blur. The trauma remains. So he decides to seek confirmation.

First Stop: Shiva’s Wedding Shoot

Vahid visits Shiva (Mariam Afshari), now a wedding photographer. She can’t be sure. Nearby is another former prisoner, Goli (Hadis Pakbaten), dressed in her wedding gown. She’s equally unsure, but since the possibility remains, she joins them in the van. Her groom, Ali (Majid Panahi), tuxedo and all, comes too.

A wedding party, a suspected torturer, and a boiling desert.

The surreal tone starts to bloom.

Trauma, Rage, and Comic Absurdity

The final confirmation must come from Hamid (Mohammad Ali Elyasmehr), the prisoner who suffered most. His trauma runs deep, and when he sees Eghbal he is immediately certain: this man is the monster. Hamid is ready to kill him.

Panahi stages the rage and grief in tight, oppressive spaces — a van, a desert pit, the cramped spaces of memory — with emotional heat to match the Middle Eastern sun. Each character presses against the frame: Hamid’s fury, Shiva’s sadness, Vahid’s doubt, Goli’s impatience, Ali’s exhausted resignation.

The comedy is almost accidental — a wedding dress in the desert, tuxedo sleeves rolled up while digging a grave — but never undercuts the stakes. Absurdity becomes survival.

Panahi’s Personal Connection

It’s impossible to separate the film from Panahi’s own life. He was a political prisoner. You feel that lived experience in every scene. The film isn’t therapy, exactly, but it’s something like working the wound with art.

Questions of vengeance, forgiveness, rage, justice — they are treated not as abstract ideas but lived truths. Panahi understands how trauma narrows the world and how absurd events can spring from the most painful memories.

A Surreal Final Act

The funniest and bleakest image in the film: Goli and Ali, in full wedding regalia, sitting in a desert wasteland while Shiva mediates an argument over where to dig a hole.

It’s almost a sight gag from a silent comedy, except it has teeth. Whether or not someone ends up in that hole is almost beside the point. What matters is how these people — strangers, then allies — end up bound by shared trauma in a morally impossible situation.

A battle of conscience plays out by headlights and falling darkness.

What Would You Do?

Panahi invites the audience into the dilemma:

• Would you be Vahid — angry, confused, desperate?

• Hamid — furious and certain?

• Shiva — torn between sorrow and restraint?

• Or Goli and Ali — people who wandered into this disaster but can’t walk away?

It’s not just a thriller. It’s a moral puzzle. And we are asked to solve it.

A Brilliant, Haunted Work

It Was Just An Accident is a brilliant film from a visionary auteur. Panahi makes movies from the soul, and this feels ripped straight from the conscience. Is vengeance easier than forgiveness? Is forgiveness even possible? What does it look like?

You don’t have to be a former political prisoner to feel the ache. Anyone who has lived through trauma, grief, or a moment of irreversible anger will see themselves here. Even the absurd moments feel true to life: grief and comedy often sit side-by-side. This is a film that lingers.

Tags

• It Was Just An Accident review

• Jafar Panahi

• Iranian cinema

• political prisoner drama

• foreign films 2025

• movie review

• film criticism

• dark comedy movies

• Middle Eastern cinema

• international film