289. Iranian director Jafar Panahi's 14th feature film "It was Just an Accident" (Yek tasadof-e sadeh) (2025) (Iran), based on his original screenplay: Can sadistically tortured and dehumanized prisoners forgive their former tormentor in a prison when the tables are turned much later?

 

You killed me a hundred times. Have you forgotten? I am a zombie. One of the living dead.,,,Why did you destroy our lives?

              --Vahid a former victim of the sadistic Eghbal, a prison official, now confronting him

Film directors Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof are without doubt the two most celebrated living Iranian film directors in the world, Both have the dubious distinction of being imprisoned several times in Iran. Their crime--they make films that present the internal problems of their country to the whole wide world, indirectly criticizing political repression of the common man. Panahi has won the very top honors at Cannes (for It was Just an Accident), Berlin (for Taxi) and Venice film festivals (for No Bears and for The Circle) --the most respected film festivals in the world. Rasoulof won the top honor at Berlin for There is No Evil and several major awards at Cannes. One cannot but admire these two gentlemen continuing to make superb films, often surreptitiously and smuggling the film they made out of Iran to be shown at major festivals.

The original screenplay and the film are the very best among all the films made by Jafar Panahi to date. The film begins with a car ride in the night in a poorly lit road, with a father, a mother, and their young daughter in the backseat. The car hits a dog, killing it. The wife comforts the husband with the words "It was just an accident." Hence, the title of the film. Panahi's screenplay telescopes that simple accident to what follows. Cinephiles who have seen the Turkish maestro Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Three Monkeys (2008) will recall a similar car accident in the night early in the film, also telescoping and connecting it to the complex tale that follows.

"Eghbal" insists he is not Eghbal to Vahid

What follows is a complex tale of several male and female prisoners, who were incarcerated in an Iranian prison, now freed but traumatized for life by the sadistic torture, while blindfolded, of a notorious prison official named Eghbal, with a prosthetic leg. One of the prisoners, Vahid, recognizes Eghbal by the audio signature of Eghbal's prosthetic leg, which is etched in one's memory when you are blindfolded. Other blindfolded victims of Eghbal recognize him by smell and touch.

Shiva, the photographer, identifies Eghbal by smell
but is not very sure

Hamid is able to identify Eghbal by touch

What follows is a creative tale scripted by Panahi, with the prisoners who have never interacted before narrating chilling tales of torture of inmates in Iranian prisons. What Panahi presents includes a cameo of the world of corrupt policemen who ask for small bribes in Iran. 

Panahi's well-crafted screenplay brings back the threesome in the car at night who witnessed their car run over a dog, at the beginning of the film, into perspective, as the tale progresses towards the end.

The end of It was Just an Accident is open-ended but the options available to all humane individuals in Iran are universally applicable. This film is definitely one of the very best films of 2025 and an appropriate subject to ruminate on when fear and hate are being increasingly experienced worldwide. It is the very best and most complex work of Jafar Panahi to date, a work that Iranian cinema can truly be proud of for a long while. One has to admire the courage of Panahi and Rasoulof to accomplish their feats under constant fear of imprisonment.

P.S. The films mentioned in the above review--Taxi, The Circle, There is No Evil, and Three Monkeys --have been reviewed earlier on this blog. Click on the names of the films in this postscript to access those reviews,