Just an Accident

The Brief

The Palme d'Or winner from Cannes is a masterful moral-philosophical drama about violence and revenge. A nighttime collision between a car and a dog sets the plot of Just an Accident in motion. The driver, his heavily pregnant wife, and their young daughter are forced to seek help at a workshop where they meet the mechanic Vahid, who gradually becomes convinced that his new customer is the man who tortured him in prison. Vahid decides to take revenge – but before taking drastic action, he must confirm that the man with the prosthetic leg really is who he thinks he is. To decide whether he can kill the torturer with a clear conscience, Vahid gathers four other victims for consultation. Among today's great Iranian filmmakers, Jafar Panahi has long stood out as one of the most lighthearted and humorous. Just an Accident contains elements of both satire and black comedy, but at the same time Panahi criticizes the corrupt Iranian regime in a more open and direct way than he has usually done.