Directed By Jafar Panahi
Starring – Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahaim Azizi
The Plot – In Iran, a man (Mobasseri) bumps into the man (Azizi) he believes to be his former torturer. However, faced with this person who fiercely denies having been his tormentor, doubt sets in.
Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, violence, strong adult language, and smoking.
IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT – Official Trailer – In Theaters October 15
POSITIVES
Very few films have the capability and technical mastery to pull off such an equal balance of entertaining and educational, but Panahi’s time as an artistically suppressed filmmaker in Iran, which unfairly saw him imprisoned about the civil unrest towards one of his films being labeled slanderous propaganda by his government, has clearly given him a leg-up in the regards to rocking the boat with a film that is not only presented theatrically in the kinds of ways that immediately hook its audience into the plight and moral ambiguities of its characters, but also articulates insightful clarity towards defeating the common misconception that all citizens support and invest in terrorful regimes that have an unrelenting and undefeatable control over its citizens. This is mentioned because much about the film is humbled by the kinds of traumatic captivity that so evidently haunts its effected characters, particularly as people living everyday lives that are abruptly put on hold, once something unresolved from their pasts trigger gut-wrenching reminder of the horrors that sorrowfully binds them in their futures, and while Panahi isn’t exactly justifying the extent of their backlashing actions towards a man who may or may not be the terrifying figure unabsolved from their memories, the humanity that the director holds for them never withers against taking the law of justice into their own hands, allowing their feelings and sensitivities to appraise meaningful empathy to characters who would otherwise come off as selfishly irresponsible in a weaker helmed film. Instead, Panahi meticulously outlines each devastating interaction with the kind of speculative vulnerability and restrain that allows the characters themselves to be the overarching storytellers supplanting answers of exposition to the audience, all with a surprising underlining of effortlessly awkward humor that transpires as a result of the absurdity in situational adversity, without truly sacrificing the intensity of the movie’s dramatic undertow. Because this is a film that is driven by the unassured ambiguity of its conflict, pacing is of course a vital component towards maintaining the audience’s vested interests, and with lots of strong dialogue and undivided presentational qualities that put the focus distinctly on the emotional beats of everyday citizens caught in the clutches of tyrannical regimes, there are very many lengthy and dramatic conversations that truly allow the emotions to build up over the course of the scenes, without anything feeling even slightly exaggerated or unnecessarily meandering to unnaturally draw attention away from the magnitude of the performances. While the entirety of the film could be framed to represent perfection to how every production should be approached towards its conflicts, the single best for me is in the much talked about climax of the film’s ending, involving the intended destination to where this excursion has been building towards, both with a satisfying emotional pay-off that therapeutically releases the anguish and introspective torture of the characters, but also fuels outsider debate into the meaning of its final shot, whether metaphorical or reality, that simultaneously conveys how Vahid can’t outrun the demons of his past. Structurally, the film is also enhanced by a spectacular presentation that really snuck up on my interpretation, whether in the elegant patience of its beautifully commanding cinematography, or razor sharp precision in sound mixing, which plays such a distinctly imposing kind of meaning to one particular character maintaining attentive influence over those surrounding him. In particular, on the movie’s superb shot compositions, there’s plenty of long and lingering frames that effortlessly zero in on the isolated dread and personalized traumas of each individualized character’s nagging focus, made even more engrossing by some stunning long take sequences that show off the incredible memorization of this highly talented ensemble, as well as some sleekly creative camera placements that imbed so much versatility to the documentation within this van without sacrificing the claustrophobia factor that speaks volumes about the urgency of their conflict. While it’s clear that Panahi is a well experienced visionary when it comes to the ways he connects with his audience, there’s techniques and tangibles that inadvertently or not, are a part of his identifying familiarity as a filmmaker, and it makes “It Was Just an Accident” feel like the fully-fledged conjuring of what the director can do, when outsider influence and budgetary limitations don’t compromise the integrity of his broadly unique stroke. Finally, much praises should be given to the talents of this exceptionally gifted ensemble, particularly Vahid Mobasseri and Mariam Afshari, who are asked to convey repressed insight into horrifying memories without the advantages of heavy exposition dumps or flashback visuals to their benefit. Mobasseri’s evaporating approachability during the film’s initialized moments quickly gives way to a vitriolic anger and aggressiveness that makes him such an unpredictable wild card of unrelenting vengeance, and Afshari, while relegated to more of a supporting role in balance to Mobasseri, does manage to steal away a scene or two with her own sorrowful remorse towards the past, particularly during the aforementioned climax to the movie, in which she sensitively holds the audience in the palm of her hands during an earth-shattering revelation, when the often reserved emotionality of her character finally gives way to the vividness of her anguishing memories, unfurling an onslaught of intense longing and conclusive body language that conveys the trauma of her detailed accounting.
NEGATIVES
In terms of limitations that the movie has towards connecting to an adoring audience, there is a point during the second act where the storytelling feels like it kind of unceremoniously stalls, as the characters move onto an emerging secondary conflict featuring unforeseen elements to outsider characters, that tests the patience of audiences seeking to just get back to the therapeutic resolve of our protagonist’s respective traumas. While the meaning of the inclusion is clearly evident, in order to gauge the withering humanity from within in their various desperation, in order to see if they hold those guilty by association, the distancing from the plot lasts a bit longer than I would’ve preferred, making it feel like the evidential padding in a movie that barely clocks in at 100 minutes of screentime, especially when so many of these individualized scenes of this time feel prolonged simply for the sake of it. In addition to this, a personal need of mine would’ve seen more scenes involving these redemptive characters interacting with their prey, in order to receive more insight into some of the secondary characters of this team reaching their own moments of clarity. At the tail end of the second act, these characters simply disappear into the night, making so much of their inclusion feel so tragically wasted by their sudden dismissal, and considering the kidnapped antagonist spends a majority of the film unconscious, in order for Panahi to revel more in the immersive questions of audiences placing themselves in the particulars of the conflict, it doesn’t feel like the director pushes the envelope of the narrative’s mystery as far as it can go before opening it, requiring one of the year’s best endings to work overtime towards appraising affection in the extent of its journey, a feat that it thankfully relishes in saving.
OVERALL
“It Was Just an Accident” is a masterfully executed and bittersweetly sorrowful story of vengeance that not only wrestles with the extensive boundaries of morality, but also courageously demonstrates the similarities in Jafar Panahi and his characters need to risk everything, in order to lay to rest the unrelenting ghosts from their pasts, that linger in their subconscious. While the film is meticulously executed, featuring stunning shots and intricate meaning to its sound mixing, the mesmerizing raw and riveting work from the naturalistic ensemble prove that the movie’s success was no accident, setting it on a collision course with Oscars gold, as an against-all-odds redemptive story for Panahi’s thankless efforts.
My Grade: 8.5 or B+