It Was Just An Accident

I kind of thought I knew what to expect from a drama that takes place in Iran and involves the kidnapping of a person thought to be a notorious torturer.  Given the tense social and poltical climate and the history of Tehran, the pull of such difficult real-life issues is to be expected.
What I did not expect from Jafar Panahi’s IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT was to be thinking of Hitchcock.  I’ll come back around to that in a second.

The film begins with a family driving through Tehran on a dirt road.  The car hits a dog, stalls and the father goes looking for a mechanic.  While discussing the issue, an employee in the shop named Vahid overhears the man walking, recognizes the unique sound of his prosthetic leg, and thinks that this man might be a sadistic torturer nicknamed Peg Leg who, years ago, worked him over when he was in prison.  Assuming that it is Peg Leg, Vahid kidnaps the man, drives him into the desert and threatens to bury him alive.  But the man’s tearful protests get Vahid thinking.  What if I’m wrong?  Since he was blindfolded during his ordeal, could this be the wrong man.

Thus begins an odyssey as Vahid drives around with the kidnapped man locked in a box in the back of his van to find other victims of Peg Leg who may be able to confirm his suspicions, eventually drawn several key players into his kidnapping scheme including a photographer and a bride and groom who were moments from walking down the aisle.  None of these people can confirm Peg Leg’s identity because they themselves were blindfolded during their torment.  All of the participants are drawn into questions of morality.  Is the man really who they think he is?  Is this act of vigilante justice justified if he turns out to be the man they’re looking for?

The movie raises those questions off and on, but much of it is about kidnapping plot which, yes, I thought of Hitchcock.  There’s a clockwork way in which the narrative lays out the journey that Vahid is on, the people he gathers along the way, and the potholes he runs across in his plan to figure out if he has the right man.  In a weird way, I though of NOTORIOUS, which also had a beefy plot with a lot of human questions at the center.

The story of the director is just as interesting as the film itself.  Pahani was imprisoned himself in 2010 and has since been refused permission to make films.  This film is an act of total rebellion.  It’s a good story that raises a lot of questions, and ends on a cyclical note that I found fascinating.