An unassuming mechanic is reminded of his time in an Iranian prison when he encounters a man he suspects to be his sadistic jailhouse captor. Panicked, he rounds up a few of his fellow ex-prisoners to confirm the man's identity.
Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident is a film that lingers not because it delivers a tidy conclusion, but because it refuses to. It’s a quiet, stripped‑back work that leans into uncertainty, letting tension build in the pauses and unfinished thoughts. The film’s strength lies in its restraint. It never rushes or forces its characters toward emotional clarity. Instead, it sits with discomfort and trusts the audience to sit with it too.
The story begins with a small, almost forgettable moment: a man with an artificial leg pulls into a garage. Vahid, a mechanic played with raw vulnerability by Vahid Mobasseri, hears the squeak of the prosthetic and freezes. That tiny sound pulls him back into a part of his past he has never escaped. The recognition is instinctive rather than certain, and that fragile uncertainty becomes the film’s emotional spine.
Panahi builds the narrative through quiet conversations, long silences, and the kind of hesitant exchanges shaped by memory and self‑protection. The performances from Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, and Ebrahim Azizi feel unpolished in the best way, as if the characters are speaking around their pain rather than through it. Their dialogue loops, falters, and circles back, capturing the way trauma reshapes language.
At its core, the film is about recognition; or the impossibility of it. It explores how memory can be both anchor and trap, how certainty erodes under pressure, and how people try to reclaim dignity after being dehumanized. Panahi never simplifies these ideas. He lets the characters sit with their doubt and their need for justice, even when justice is impossible to define.
The tension doesn’t come from action. It comes from the moral weight pressing down on everyone involved. Panahi keeps the camera close, often refusing to show what characters see or fear. That choice creates a constant sense of unease. You’re always aware of what’s missing, what’s obscured, what can’t be confirmed. The film becomes a study in how uncertainty shapes behaviour and how it corrodes the people who carry it.
There’s a deliberate minimalism to the storytelling. Scenes stretch just long enough for discomfort to settle. Conversations hover without resolution. The film isn’t interested in answers. It’s interested in the emotional terrain people inhabit when clarity is out of reach.
Panahi threads in a quiet commentary on power and its residue; how it’s used, how it lingers, and how it shapes people long after the moment of harm. The film never lectures. It simply shows how systems of control echo through the lives of those who survived them.
What makes It Was Just an Accident so gripping is its refusal to settle. It doesn’t build toward a grand revelation or a cathartic release. Instead, it leans into ambiguity, trusting the audience to sit with the same uncertainty the characters face. Some may find that frustrating, but the film’s honesty lies in that choice. It understands that some wounds don’t close neatly, and some questions don’t have answers.
The structure drifts in a way that feels intentional. The film moves through moments of tension, doubt, and flashes of dark humor. At times, the uncertainty becomes so overwhelming it borders on absurd, revealing how revenge can twist into chaos when certainty is impossible. These tonal shifts never undercut the seriousness of the story. They highlight how unstable the pursuit of justice becomes when the truth is slippery.
Panahi also weaves in subtle reflections on corruption and authoritarianism. The film shows how violence from those in power seeps into everyday life, shaping how people treat each other long after the original harm is done. The characters aren’t just confronting a man. They’re confronting a system that taught them to fear, to doubt, and to lash out.
The film ends the way it begins: with uncertainty. There is no moment where everything becomes clear. No revelation that resolves the moral dilemma. That ambiguity is the point. The film isn’t about the destination. It’s about the uneasy journey, the tension of not knowing, the ache of wanting justice in a world where truth is never solid.
Panahi has crafted something raw, honest, and stripped of ornamentation. It’s a story about people trying to reclaim their dignity, about the fragile line between victim and perpetrator, and about how easily certainty can harden into something dangerous. It’s not a film that tries to impress with spectacle. It’s a film that asks you to sit with discomfort and accept that some wounds never fully close.
It Was Just an Accident may not satisfy those looking for a clean narrative arc, but its power lies in its refusal to simplify. It’s a quiet, unsettling, deeply human work that stays with you precisely because it doesn’t tell you what to think. It leaves you where its characters are left: searching, questioning, and trying to make sense of a world where certainty is a luxury few can afford.
It Was Just An Accident is coming to Aotearoa NZ cinemas January 29